busy, they will be likely to hunt up a variety of exercises for themselves, regardless of the trouble they may cause others. Skill in adapting a subject to the disposition and capacity of a child, and in presenting variety, will generally find ways to keep him busy at some useful work.

(II.) The power of clear discrimination comes with experience, and as the activity depends upon clearness as well as upon variety, the character of the distinctions made should be adapted to the child's capacity. It is useless to present a distinction unless it is felt. Sometimes it will require a moment's attention, and this is hard to keep with children except by moving forward. They are averse to any requirement to stop and think. But if a distinction is necessary to be made, it should be sought by one means or another till obtained.

(III.) In seeking variety for children it should not be forgotten that the senses are their chief means of discrimination. Objects that appeal to the senses, and language that recalls experience, should be studiously employed.

(IV.) It must not be supposed that much good is done by furnishing variety for discrimination if that is the end of the activity. It is of but little worth unless good use is made of it intellectually. But discrimination is activity, and it is the first step from dullness toward mental life and growth.

LAW V.—WHEN DISCRIMINATION CEASES, ACTIVITY CEASES.

First Proof.-This Law follows as the converse of the preceding Law. The greater the discriminations, the greater the activity; the fewer the discriminations, the less the activity; no discrimination, no activity.

Second Proof.-When consciousness is so low that distinctions of sense and thought are dim, the mind rests; when no distinctions are made, there is sleep or unconsciousness.

Third Proof.-Any monotonous sound, not unpleasant or so peculiar as to force its distinctions on the mind, the pattering of rain, the rippling of a brook, the swashing of waves upon the beach, draws the attention gently from other objects, and when its monotonous distinctions wear themselves out, the listener falls asleep.

OBSERVATIONS.

(I.) Provision for rest and recreation is as necessary, sometimes, as provision for stimulating activity, and it is quite as difficult to devise. The Law gives light in one direction. In cases of sickness, when the body needs all the energy it can have, the particulars of the day, the details of daily routine, rambling talk, the constant sight of visitors coming and going, or other movements in the room are alike troublesome and an obstruction to speedy recovery. To hold up to the imagination a vast, unvaried plain, to look upon the illimitable sea, the expanse of the sky with only its repetition of star after star, and then to follow the picture with unvarying mood on and on toward the infinite, is to lose the mind in boundless space, to be followed by forgetfulness of self. In this way the sea and the mountain unite the influence of their care-dispelling uniformity and vastness to their invigorating breezes, and bring rest and strength to the wearied and exhausted.

(II.) The imagination often discovers distinctions where none exist in reality. This is a fruitful source of erroneous judgments and harmful actions. Reports and inferences should be brought to the test of facts more fre

quently than is the wont of injured feelings, for there is nothing like reality to dispel excitement that is without justification from the truth.

(III.) The actions of children are often too severely censured by the teacher, because the actions seem to imply distinctions which the children have not really made. The teacher may develop these distinctions in the mind of a child, but should not presume the existence of an evil motive unless there is the best evidence that it has been called into action.

CHAPTER V.

UNIFICATION.

T has already been shown that, to be possible and permanent, discrimination requires a pre-existent preparation and subsequent growth. The mind must possess a basis of unity before it can discriminate, and discrimination must develop a consciousness of this unity as containing the differences noted, or the result will be but a passing sensation.

2. We speak of knowledge as being assimilated, as being incorporated into the mind, and we use other figures which represent some of the relations of knowledge to the mind, but they do not set forth the facts completely, and they are liable to be so applied as to mislead. We do not know the ultimate nature of an act of knowledge, and all speculations in regard to it seem idle. If we limit it to the formation and differentiation of nervecells, what, then, is consciousness? If we conceive of the mind as stamped with the images of objects, what interprets the relations of these images to each other? The objects are only seen to exist by themselves, and their likeness or unlikeness to each other is an interpretation of the mind, not a part of either the objects or their images. If we adopt the Platonic theory that the mind is originally possessed of real knowledge which is called up in memory by experience, what is it but a guess in default of other explanation, and a guess that would only

remove the difficulty back to a previous existence? All we can do is to press our investigation to a rational understanding of the facts we may discover.

3. In two directions, we seem already to have come to the limit of inquiry.

First.-There must be an underlying basis of unity in the mind for comparison to make discrimination possible. Secondly.-There must be an active consciousness distinguishing differences.

It remains to discuss here the activity that follows discrimination; the activity that is necessary to permanency of impressions and growth. This may be set forth as an ultimate principle limiting investigation in a third direction, and stated as follows:

Thirdly. There must be developed a consciousness of the unity on which comparison depends as embracing the distinctions made. This is Unification.

4. Knowledge is not gained by accretion, as stones are laid together in a pile. It is a growth. The elements are held together by an organizing power of the mind that will not let them be removed one by one, but by a power which allows disintegration only by a process of building newer forms to take the place of the old. The world has long known the rainbow as a beautiful arch of seven colors. Now we conceive of it as pure light, separated into seven dissimilar elements by the prismatic power of rain-drops. The ancients only gazed with wonder on its penciled beauty; now we can scarcely look upon the bow in the cloud without mingling with admiration of its beauty a sense of awe at the wisdom that is able to weave those seven rays together into the soft light that lights the world; that can spread them out again upon the cloud, upon the sea, upon the sky, upon the grass, and upon the rose at will. The first notion of the bow is a unification

S. E.-12.