awakened in the minds of pupils when groaning under the burden of abstractions.

The opposition of the Concrete and the Abstract, while but another way of expressing the opposition of the Particular and the General, brings into greater prominence the highly composite or combined character of Individuality. The individual thing is usually a compound of many qualities, each of which has to be abstracted in turn, in rising to general notions: any individual ball has, in addition to its round form, the properties called weight, hardness, colour, and so on. Now this composite nature, by charming several senses at once, gives a greater interest to individuals, and urges us to resist that process of decomposition, and separate attention, known by the designations 'abstraction' and analysis.' It is for individuals in all their multiplicity of influence that we contract likings or affections; and in proportion as the charm of sense, and especially the colour sense, is strong in us, we are averse to the classing or generalizing operation. A fire is an object of strong individual interest: to rise from this to the general notion of the oxidation of carbon under all varieties of mode, including cases with no intrinsic charm, is to quit with reluctance an agreeable contemplation. The emotions now described-the pleasure of identity, and the lightening of labour-are of avail to counterwork this reluctance.

'

The second of the two motives that we have coupled together-the easing of intellectual labour-may be viewed in another light. When objects are regarded as operating agents in the economy of the world, as causes or instruments of change, they work by their qualities

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or powers in separation, and not by their entire individuality or concreteness. An iron bar, or a poker, is an individual concrete thing; but when we come to use it, we put in action its various qualities separately. We may employ it as a weight; in which case its other properties are of no account. We may use it as a lever, and then we bring into play simply its length and its tenacity. We can put it in motion as a moving power, when its inertia alone is taken into account, with perhaps its form. In all these instances, the magnetical and the chemical and the medicinal properties of iron are unthought of. Now this consideration discloses an important aid to the abstracting process-the analytic separation of properties, as opposed to the mind's fondness for clinging to concrete individuality. When we are working out practical ends, we must follow nature's method of working; and, as that is by isolating the separate qualities, we must perform the act of mental isolation, which is to abstract, or consider one power to the neglect of the rest. When we want to put forth heavy pressure, we think of various bodies solely as they can exert weight, however many other ways they may invite or charm our sense. This is to generalize or form a general notion of weight; and the motive to conceive it, is practical need or necessity.

This motive of practical need at once brings us to the very core of Causation, viewed as a merely speculative notion. The cause of anything is the agent that would bring that thing into being, suppose we were in want of it. The cause of warmth in a room is combustion properly arranged. We use this fact for practical purposes, and we may also use it for satisfying mere

curiosity. We enter a warm room; we may desire to know how it has been made warm, and we are satisfied by being told that there has been, or is now somewhere, a fire in communication with it.

Thus it is that in proportion as we come to operate upon the world practically ourselves, and from that proceed to contemplate causation at large, we are driven upon the abstracting and analyzing process, so repugnant to one large portion of our feelings. Science finds an opening in our minds at this point, when otherwise we might need the proverbial surgical operation.

These observations will serve to illustrate the working of the emotion named Curiosity, which is justly held to be a great power in teaching. Curiosity expresses the emotions of knowledge viewed as desire; and, more especially, the desire to surmount an intellectual difficulty once felt. Genuine curiosity belongs to the stage of advanced and correct views of the world.

Much of the curiosity of children, and of others besides children, is a spurious article. Frequently it is a mere display of egotism, the delight in giving trouble, in being pandered to and served. Questions are put, not from the desire of rational information, but from the love of excitement. Occasionally, the inquisitiveness of a child provides an opportunity for imparting a piece of real information; but far oftener not. By ingeniously circumventing a scientific fact, one not too high for a child's comprehension, we may awaken curiosity and succeed in impressing the fact. Try a child to lift a heavy weight first by the direct pull, and then by a lever or a set of pulleys, and probably you will excite

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some surprise and wonder, with a desire to know something further about the instrumentality. But one fatal defect of the childish mind is the ascendancy of the personal or anthropomorphic conception of cause. This no doubt is favourable to the theological explanation of the world, but wholly unsuited to physical science. A child, if it had any curiosity at all, would like to know what makes the grass grow, the rain fall, the wind howl, and generally all things that are occasional and exceptional; an indifference being contracted towards what is familiar, constant, and regular. When anything goes wrong, the child has the wish to set it right, and is anxious to know what will answer the purpose: this is the inlet of practice, and, by this, correct knowledge may find its way to the mind, provided the power of comprehension is sufficiently matured. Still, the radical obstacle remains the impossibility of approaching science at random, or taking it in any order; we must begin at the proper beginning, and we may not always contrive to tickle the curiosity at the exact stage of the pupil's understanding. Every teacher knows, or should know, the little arts of giving a touch of wonder and mystery to a fact before giving the explanation; all which is found to tell in the regular march of exposition, but would be lost labour in any other course.

The very young, those that we are working upon by gentle allurement, are not fully competent to learn the 'how' or the 'wherefore' of any important natural fact; they cannot even be made to desire the thing in the proper way. They are open chiefly to the charm of sense, novelty, and variety, which, together with accidental charm or liking, impresses the pictorial or concrete

aspects of the world, whether quiescent or changing, the last being the most powerful. They farther are capable of understanding the more palpable conditions of many changes, without penetrating to ultimate causes. They learn that to light a fire there must be fuel and a light applied; that the growth of vegetables needs planting or sowing, together with rain and sunshine through a summer season. The empirical knowledge of the world that preceded science is still the knowledge that the child passes through in the way to science; and all this may be guided so as to prepare for the future scientific revelations. In other respects, the so-called curiosity of children is chiefly valuable as yielding ludicrous situations for our comic literature.

The Emotions of Activity.

Nothing is more frequently prescribed in education than to foster the pupils' own activity, to put them in the way of discovering facts and principles for themselves. This position needs to be carefully surveyed.

There is, in the human system, a certain spontaneity of action, the result of central energy, independent of any feelings that may accompany the exercise. It is great in children; and it marks special individuals, who are said to possess the active temperament. It distinguishes races and nationalities of human beings, and is illustrated in the differences among the animal tribes; it also varies with general bodily vigour. This activity would burst out and discharge itself in some form of exertion, whether useful or useless, even if the result were perfectly indifferent as regards pleasure or pain.