Impulse leads criminals to commit evil actions against other men; but

how often normal persons have to regret thoughtless acts and nervous

outbursts which have sad consequences to themselves! For the most part

the normal impulsive person harms himself only, compromises his

career, and is unable to bring his talents to fruition; he suffers

from a conscious servitude, as from a misfortune from which he might

perhaps have been saved.

He who is pathologically the victim of his own powers of inhibition is

certainly the more unhappy sufferer; he remains immobile and silent;

but internally he longs to move. A thousand impulses which can find no

outlet torture the soul which aspires to art, to work; and eloquent

speech on his own misfortunes would fain flow from his lips to implore

help from a physician, or comfort from some lofty soul; but his lips

are sealed. He feels the horrible oppression of one buried alive. But

how many normal persons suffer from something of the same kind! On

some propitious occasion in their lives they ought to have come

forward and shown their worth, but they were unable to do so. A

thousand times they have thought that a sincere expression of feeling

might have straightened out a difficult situation; but the heart has

closed and the lips have remained mute. How passionately they have

longed to speak to some noble soul who would have understood them,

illuminated and comforted them! But when they have been face to face

with this person, they have been unable to speak a word. The

longed-for individual encouraged them, questioned them, urged them to

express themselves, but the sole response to the invitation was an

internal anguish. Speak! Speak! said impulse in the depths of their

consciousness; but inhibition was inexorable as a resistless material

force.

It is in the education of the will by means of free exercises wherein

the impulses balance the inhibitions that the cure of such subjects

might be found, provided such a cure could be undertaken at the age

when the will is in process of formation.

* * * * *

Such an equilibrium established as a mechanism at the margin of

consciousness, which makes a man of the world "correct" in his

conduct, is by no means that which constitutes the "person of will."

It has been said above that the consciousness remains free for other

voluntary requirements. The most refined and aristocratic lady might

nevertheless be a person "without will" and "without character,"

although she might have acquired the most rigorous mechanisms

productive of a mechanical will directed solely to external objects.

There is a voluntary fundamental quality upon which not only are the

superficial relations between man and man based, but on which the very

edifice of society is erected. This quality is known as "continuity."

The social structure is founded upon the fact that men can work

steadily and produce within certain average limits on which the

economic equilibrium of a people is constructed. The social relations

which are the basis of the reproduction of the species are founded

upon the continuous union of parents in marriage. The family and

productive work: these are the two pivots of society; they rest upon

the greatest volitive quality: constancy, or persistence.

This quality is really the exponent of the uninterrupted concord of

the inner personality. Without it, a life would be a series of

episodes, a chaos; it would be like a body disintegrated into its

cells, rather than an organism which persists throughout the mutations

of its own material. This fundamental quality, when it embraces the

sentiment of the individual and the direction of his ideation, that is

to say, his whole personality, is what we have called _character_. The

man of character is the persistent man, the man who is faithful to his

own word, his own convictions, his own affections.

Now the sum of these various manifestations of constancy has an

exponent of immense social value: persistence in work.

The degenerate, even before he gave way to criminal impulse, before he

betrayed the inconstancy of his affections, before he broke his word,

before he made havoc of all the convictions that ennoble the soul of

man, had a certain stigma which marked him as one lost and

disintegrated: this was laziness, incapacity to persist in work.

Directly an honest and well-behaved man begins to suffer from

brain-disease, before he shows any violent impulses, disorder in

conduct, or signs of delirium, he has a premonitory symptom: he can no

longer apply himself to work. Among the masses, it is justly thought

that a girl will make a good wife when she is industrious, and a man

is said to be an honest fellow and one who can offer good prospects to

the girl who is to be his wife, when he is a good workman. This

_goodness_ is not a matter of ability; it implies steadiness,

perseverance. For instance, a pseudo-artist of great skill in

producing small artistic objects, but lacking the will to work, would

not be considered a good match. Every one knows that he is not only

incapable of economic production, but that he is a suspicious and

dangerous character, that he might become a bad husband, a bad father,

a bad citizen. On the other hand, the humblest artisan who "works"

undoubtedly contains within himself all the elements which make for

happiness and security in life. This unquestionably was the meaning of

the great Roman encomium: "She stayed indoors and spun the wool," that

is to say, she was a woman of character, a worthy companion for the

conquerors of the world.

Now the little child who manifests perseverance in his work as the

first constructive act of his psychical life, and upon this act builds

up internal order, equilibrium, and the growth of personality,

demonstrates, almost as in a splendid revelation, the true manner in

which man renders himself valuable to the community. The little child

who persists in his exercises, concentrated and absorbed, is obviously

elaborating the constant man, the man of character, the man who will

find in himself all human values, crowning that unique fundamental

manifestation: persistence in work. Whatever task the child may

choose it will be all the same, provided he persists in it. For what

is valuable is not the work itself, but the work as a means for the

construction of the psychic man.

He who interrupts the children in their occupations in order to make

them learn some pre-determined thing; he who makes them cease the

study of arithmetic to pass on to that of geography and the like,

thinking it is important to direct their culture, confuses the means

with the end and destroys the man for a vanity. That which it is

necessary to direct is not the culture of man, but the man himself.

* * * * *

If persistence be the true foundation of the will, we nevertheless

recognize _decision_ as the act of the will _par excellence_. In order

to accomplish any conscious act whatever, it is necessary that we

should decide. Now a _decision_ is always the result of a _choice_. If

we have several hats, we must decide which one we will put on when we

go out; it may not in the least matter whether it be the brown hat or

the gray, but we must choose one of them. For such a choice we must

have our motives, whether they be in favor of the gray or the brown;

but finally one of the motives will prevail and the choice will be

made. Obviously, the habit of taking a hat and going out will

facilitate our choice; we are almost unconscious which of the motives

stirred and struggled within us. It is the question of a minute and

leaves no impression of effort. Our knowledge as to which hat will be

suitable for the morning or the afternoon, for the theater or for

sport, saves us from any mental conflict.

But this will not be the case if, for instance, we are about to spend

a certain sum of money on a present. What shall we buy among the

various objects from which it will be possible to choose? If we have

no very definite knowledge of the things, our task may become an

anxiety. We should like to choose something artistic, but we do not

know much about art, and we fear to be deceived and so to cut a sorry

figure; we know not what is customary and have no idea whether a piece

of lace or a silver bowl would be suitable. We then feel the need of

some one to enlighten us as to all these unknown details, and we go to

ask advice. It does not, however, follow that we shall take the advice

we receive. To tell the truth, the advice was to deal with our

ignorance; we required an aid to knowledge rather than an incitement

to an effort of the will. Volition is something which we jealously

reserve for ourselves, and is a very different matter from the

knowledge indispensable to a decision. The choice which we make after

the advice of one or more persons will bear our own impress, it will

be the decision of our _ego_.

The choice which the mistress of a house will make to prepare a dinner

for guests is of the same nature; but there she has a perfect

knowledge of the subject, and good taste, and the decision will be

made with pleasure and without any extraneous aid.

But who does not know that in every case this making a decision is an

_internal labor_, a genuine effort; so much so that persons of feeble

will try to avoid it, as a thing irksome to them. If possible, the

mistress of the house will leave the decisions to the cook, and to a

dressmaker all the arguments necessary to make one of the many motives

that come into play in the choice of a gown prevail over the rest; the

dressmaker, seeing that a decision will only be reached after long

hesitation, will say at a certain moment: Choose this which suits you

so well, and the lady will agree, more to evade the effort of a

decision than because the garment pleases her. Our entire life is a

continual exercise of decisions. When we go out of the house after

having locked the door, we have a clear consciousness of this act, a

certainty that the house is well protected, and we _decide_ to step

out and walk away from it.

The stronger we are in such exercises, the more independent we shall

be of others. Clarity of ideas, the mechanism of the habit of

decision, give us a sense of liberty. The heaviest chain, which may

bind us in a humiliating form of slavery, is an incapacity to make our

own decisions, and the consequent need to refer to others; the fear of

making "a mistake," the sense of groping in the dark, of having to

bear the consequences of an error we are not certain to recognize,

makes us run behind another person like a dog on a chain. Finally, we

shall fall into an extremity of dependence; we shall no longer be able

to despatch a letter or buy a pocket-handkerchief without asking

advice.

But when an actual conflict arises in such a consciousness, and the

decision has to be instantaneous, irresolution is the portion of one

whose weakness has placed him in subjection to another stronger will,

and then we behold a subjection which has almost imperceptibly become

an incubus: the victim has taken the first step towards an abyss where

the feeble in will run the risk of perdition. Thus the more the young

are placed in subjection, without power to exercise their own wills,

the more easily do they fall a prey to the perils of which the world

is full.

That which gives strength to resist is not the _moral vision_, it is

the _exercise of will-power_; and this exercise is to be found in the

routine of life itself. The mother of a family, much occupied in her

mission of domestic work, and accustomed to decide in all matters

pertaining to the daily round, is more likely to gain the victory in

the event of moral conflict than a childless woman who lives in an

enervating atmosphere of domestic idleness, and has accustomed herself

to accept her husband's will as her own. Yet both of these women might

have the same moral vision. The first-mentioned, if left a widow,

might make herself conversant with business and carry on the

undertaking managed by her husband; but the second in like

circumstances would require tutelage, and would run every risk of

disaster. To ensure moral salvation, it is primarily necessary to

_depend_ on oneself, because in the moment of peril we are _alone_.

And strength is not to be acquired instantaneously. He who knows that

he will have to fight, prepares himself for boxing and dueling by

strength and skill; he does not sit still with folded hands, because

he knows that he will then either be lost or he will have to depend,

like the shadow of a body, on some one to protect him step by step

throughout his life, which in practise is impossible.

One single moment served to conquer us,

says Francesca, in Dante's _Inferno_.

Temptation, if it is not to conquer, must not fall like a bomb against

another bomb of instantaneous moral explosions, but against the strong

walls of an impregnable fortress strongly built up, stone by stone,

beginning at that distant day when the foundations were first laid.

Persistent work, clarity of ideas, the habit of sifting conflicting

motives in the consciousness, even in the minutest actions of life,

decisions taken every moment on the smallest things, the gradual

master over one's actions, the power of self-direction increasing by

degrees in the sum of successively repeated acts, these are the stout

little stones on which the strong structure of personality is built

up. This may then be inhabited by morality, as by a princess who lives

among the embattled towers and moats of a medieval fortress that is in

a perpetual state of defense, always under arms, but with every

probability of remaining the "lady," the "_châtelaine_." If to "build

up the house" which morality will inhabit, some mastery of the body is

also necessary, such as abstinence from alcohol, which is the chief

example of poison taken from without and tending to weaken, and

movement in the open air, which facilitates material recuperation by

freeing us from the poisons which we ourselves manufacture and which

weaken us, how much more essential must be the continual exercise of

the will as a vivifying means of psychical recuperation?

Our little children are constructing their own wills when, by a

process of self-education, they put in motion complex internal

activities of comparison and judgment, and in this wise make their

intellectual acquisitions with order and clarity; this is a kind of

"knowledge" capable of preparing children to form their own decisions,

and one which makes them independent of the suggestions of others;

they can then _decide_ in every act of their daily life; they decide

to take or not to take; they decide to accompany the rhythm of a song

with movement; they decide to check every motor impulse when they

desire silence. The _constant work_ which builds up their personality

is all set in motion by _decisions_; and this takes the place of the

primitive state of _chaos_, in which, on the other hand, _actions_

were the outcome of _impulses_. A voluntary life develops gradually

within them; and doubt and timidity disappear, together with the

darkness of the primitive mental confusion.

Such a development of the will would be impossible if, instead of

allowing order and clarity to mature in the mind, we should seek to

encumber it with chaotic ideas, or with stores of lessons learnt by

heart, and then prevent children from making decisions by deciding

everything for them. Teachers who adopt these methods are justified in

saying that "a child ought not to have a will of his own," and in

teaching him that "there is no such plant as 'I will.'" Indeed, they

prevent the infantine will from developing. Under such conditions

children are conscious of a power which inhibits all their actions;

they become timid, and have no courage to undertake anything without

the help and consent of the person on whom they depend entirely. "What

color are these cherries?" a lady once asked a child, who knew quite

well that they were red. But the timid, nervous child, doubtful as to

whether it would be right or wrong to answer, murmured: "I will ask my

teacher."

The volitive mechanism which prepares for decision is one of the most

important mechanisms of the will; it is valuable in itself, and should

be established and strengthened in itself. Pathology illustrates it

for us apart from the other factor of the will, and thus places it

before our eyes as a pillar of the great vault which supports the

human personality. The so-called "mania of doubt" is one of the most

frequent phases in the degenerative forms of psychopathy, and

sometimes precedes certain obsessions, which urge the sufferer on

irresistibly to the commission of immoral or harmful acts. But there

may also be a mania of doubt simple and genuine, which is confined to

the impossibility of taking a decision, and which produces a serious

state of distress, though it induces no moral lapses, and may even

arise from a moral scruple. In a hospital for nervous disorders I once

encountered a characteristic case of the "mania of doubt" which had a

moral basis. The patient was a man whose business it was to go round

to houses collecting refuse; he was seized with misgivings lest some

useful object should have accidentally fallen into the rubbish-baskets,

and that he would be suspected of appropriating it. Hereupon the

unhappy man, just when he was about to go off with his load, climbed

all the stairs again, and knocked again at all the doors, asking

whether something valuable might not perhaps have chanced to be in the

baskets. Going away after assurances to the contrary, he would return

and knock again, and so on. In vain he applied to the doctor for some

means of strengthening his will. We told him repeatedly that there was

nothing of any value in the baskets, that he might be quite easy on

this point, and carry on his business without any preoccupations. Then

a gleam of hope shone in his eyes. "I may be quite easy!" he repeated,

going away. In a minute he was back again. "Then I may really be

easy?" In vain we reassured him. "Yes, indeed, quite easy." His wife

led him away, but from the window we saw the man stop at a certain

point in the street, struggle with her, and come back in great

agitation. Once more he appeared at the door to ask: "I may be quite

easy then?"

But how often normal persons harbor in their minds the germs of such a

mania! Here, for instance, is a person who is going out; he locks the

door and shakes it; but when he has gone a few steps he is assailed by

doubt: did he fasten the door? He knows that he did, he perfectly

remembers having shaken it, but an irresistible impulse makes him go

back to see if the door is really fastened. There are children who,

before getting into bed at night, always look under it to see if there

are any animals there--cats, for instance; they see there are none,

and quite understand there are none. Nevertheless, after a while they

get out again "to see if there is anything." These germs are carried

about enclosed like tubercular bacilli in some tiny lymphatic gland;

the whole organism is weak. But the mischief is hidden and causes no

uneasiness, just as the pallor of the face may be concealed for a time

by rouge.

If we consider that the will must manifest itself in actions which the

body must carry out effectively, we shall understand that a formative

exercise is necessary to develop it by means of its mechanisms.

There is a perfect parallel between the formation of the will and the

coordination of movement of its physiological structure, the striated

muscles. It is evident that exercise is necessary to establish

precision in our movements. We know that we cannot learn to dance

without preliminary exercises, that we cannot play the piano without

practising the movements of the hand; but prior to this, the

fundamental coordination of movements, that is to say, ambulation and

prehension, must have already been established from infancy. It is not

yet so evident to us that similar gradual preparations are necessary

to develop the will.

In the purely physiological functions of the muscular apparatus, our

voluntary muscles do not all act in the same manner, but rather in two

opposite senses; some, for instance, serve to thrust the arm out from

the body, others to draw it near; some serve to bend, others to

straighten the knee; they are, that is to say, "antagonistic" in their

action. Every movement of the body is the result of a combination

between antagonistic muscles, in which now one, now the other prevails

in a kind of collaboration by which the greatest diversity of

movements is made possible to us: movements energetic, graceful,

elegant. It is thus we are enabled to establish not only a noble

attitude of the body, but a delightful motor correspondence with

musical rhythm.

To bring about this intimate combination between antagonistic forces,

all that is necessary is exercise in movement. True, we can _educate_

movement; but this only after the natural coordination has already

taken place; then we can "provoke" special movements as in sporting

games, dances, etc., which movements must, however, be repeatedly

executed by the performer himself in order to produce in him the

possibility of new combinations of movement. Not only in the case of

movements of grace and agility, but also in those of strength, it is

necessary that the performer himself should act repeatedly. The will

certainly comes into play here: the performer wishes to devote himself

to sport, or to dancing, or to the arts of self-defense, to compete in

matches, etc.... but in order to _will_ this it is necessary that he

should have practised continually, thus making ready the apparatus on

which the volitive act will finally depend, and to which it will issue

its commands. Movement is always voluntary, both when the first

movements established by "muscular coordination" take place, and when

exercises designed to produce fresh combinations of movements (skill)

follow each other--as, in short, when the will acts like a commander

whose orders are carried out by a well organized, disciplined, and

highly skilled army. Voluntary action, in respect of its "powers,"

increases in degree as its dependent muscles perfect themselves and so

achieve the necessary conditions for seconding its efforts.

It would certainly never occur to any one that in order to educate the

voluntary motility of a child, it would be well first of all to keep

it absolutely motionless, covering its limbs with cement (I will not

say fracturing them!) until the muscles become atrophied and almost

paralyzed; and then, when this result had been attained, that it would

suffice to read to the child wonderful stories of clowns, acrobats and

champion boxers and wrestlers, to fire him by such examples, and to

inspire in him an ardent desire to emulate them. It is obvious that

such a proceeding would be an inconceivable absurdity.

And yet we do something of the same kind when, in order to educate the

child's "will," we first of all attempt to annihilate it, or, as we

say, "break" it, and thus hamper the development of every factor of

the will, substituting ourselves for the child in everything. It is by

_our_ will that we keep him motionless, or make him act; it is we who

choose and decide for him. And after all this we are content to teach

him that "to will is to do" (_volere è potere_). And we present to his

fancy, in the guise of fabulous tales, stories of heroic men, giants

of will, under the illusion that by committing their deeds to memory a

vigorous feeling of emulation will be aroused and will complete the

miracle.

When I was a child, attending the first classes of the elementary

schools, there was a kind teacher who was very fond of us. Of course,

she kept us captive and motionless on our seats, and talked

incessantly herself, though she looked pale and exhausted. Her fixed

idea was to make us learn by heart the lives of famous women, and

more especially "heroines," in order to incite us to imitate them; she

made us study an immense number of biographies; in order to

demonstrate to us all the possibilities of becoming illustrious and

also to convince us that it was not beyond our powers to be heroines,

since these were so numerous. The exhortation which accompanied these

narratives was always the same: "You, too, should try to become

famous; would not you, too, like to be famous?" "Oh, no!" I answered

one day, drily; "I shall never do so. I care too much for the children

of the future to add yet another biography to the list."

* * * * *

The unanimous reports of the educationists from all parts of the world

who attended the last pedagogic and psychological international

congresses lamented the "lack of character" in the young as

constituting a great danger to the race. But it is not that character

is lacking in the race; it is that school distorts the body and

weakens the spirit. All that is needed is an act of liberation; and

the latent forces of man will then develop.

The manner in which we are to make use of our strong will is a higher

question, which, however, can rest only upon one basis: that the will

exists--that is, has been developed, and has become strong. One of the

examples usually given to our children, to teach them to admire

strength of will, is that of Vittorio Alfieri, who began to educate

himself late in life, overcoming the drudgery of the rudiments by a

great effort. He, who had hitherto been a man of the world, set to

work to study the Latin grammar, and persevered until he became a man

of letters, and, in virtue of his ardent genius, one of our greatest

poets. The phrase by which he explained his transformation is just the

phrase every child in Italy has heard quoted by his teachers: "I

willed, perpetually I willed, with all my strength I willed."

Now, before he made the great "decision," Vittorio Alfieri was the

victim of a capricious society lady whom he loved. Alfieri felt that

he was ruining himself by remaining the slave of his passion; an

internal impulse urged him to raise himself; he felt the great man

latent within him, full of powers not yet developed, but potential and

expansive; he would fain have turned them to account, responded to

their inner call, and dedicated himself to them; but then a scented

note from the lady would summon him to join her in her box at the

play, and the evening would be wasted. The power this lady exercised

over him overcame his own will, which would gladly have resisted.

Nevertheless, the rage and weariness he endured as he sat through the

silly performances at the theater caused him such acute suffering that

at last he felt that he hated the fascinating lady.

His determination took a material form: he resolved to create an

_insurmountable_ obstacle between himself and her; he accordingly cut

off the thick plait of hair which adorned his head, the badge of

gentle birth, without which he would have been ashamed to leave the

house; then he had himself bound with ropes to his armchair, where he

spent several days in such agitation that he was unable even to read a

line; it was only the material impossibility of moving, and the

thought of cutting a ridiculous figure, which kept him there, in spite

of the impulse to hasten to the beloved one.

It was thus that he "willed, willed perpetually, with all his

strength," and so left the man within him free to expand; it was thus

he saved himself from futility and perdition and worked for his own

immortality.

And it is something of the same sort that we desire to bring about in

our children by the education of the will; we wish them to learn to

save themselves from the vanities that destroy man, and concentrate on

work which causes the inner life to expand, and leads to great

undertakings; we wish them to work for their own immortality.

This loving and anxious desire inclines us to draw them along shielded

by us. But is there not within the child himself a power which enables

him to save himself? The child loves us with all his heart and follows

us with all the devotion of which his little soul is capable;

nevertheless he has something within himself which governs his inner

life: it is the force of his own expansion. It is this force, for

instance, which leads him to touch things in order to become

acquainted with them, and we say to him, "Do not touch"; he moves

about to establish his equilibrium, and we tell him to "keep still";

he questions us to acquire knowledge, and we reply, "Do not be

tiresome." We relegate him to a place at our side, vanquished and

subdued, with a few tiresome playthings, like an Alfieri in the box at

the theater. He might well think: Why does she, whom I love so dearly,

want to annihilate me? Why does she wish to oppress me with her

caprices? It is caprice which makes her prevent me from developing the

expansive forces within me, and relegate me to a place among vain and

wearisome things, merely because I love her.

Thus, to save himself, the child should be a strong spirit, like

Vittorio Alfieri; but too often he cannot.

We do not perceive that the child is a victim and that we are

annihilating him; and then we demand _everything_ from his _nullity_

by a _fiat_, by an act of our omnipotence. We want the adult man, but

without allowing him to grow.

Many will think, when they read the story of Vittorio Alfieri, that

they would have wished something more in their sons; they would have

wished it to be unnecessary to set up material obstacles against

temptation, such as the cutting off of the hair and the binding to the

armchair with ropes; and would have hoped that a spiritual force would

have sufficed to resist it. Like one of our great poets who, singing

of the Roman Lucrezia, reproves her for having killed herself; since

she ought to have died of grief at the outrage, had she been even more

virtuous than she was.

Now that father with the spiritual ideals would not, in all

probability, ask himself what he himself had done to enable his son to

become strong and rise to the level of spiritual aid. Very likely he

is a father who did his utmost to break the will of his son and make

him submissive to his own will. No earthly father can make the spirit

rise to such heights; this can only be accomplished by the mysterious

voice which speaks within the heart of the man in the silence. A voice

which is strident because it is raised against the laws of Nature,

like the voice of the father who wishes to subdue another creature to

himself, disturbs that "silence" where, in peace and liberty, the

divine works are being accomplished. Without the "strong man" all is

vain.

It is recorded that a priest once presented to Saint Teresa a young

girl who wished to become a Carmelite nun, and who, according to him,

had angelic qualities. Saint Teresa, accepting the neophyte, replied:

"See, my father, our Lord has given this maiden devotion, but she has

no judgment, and never will have any; and she will always be a burden

to us."

One of the greatest of contemporary theologians, who during the

proceedings to obtain the canonisation of Joan of Arc had made a

profound study of her personality, says, in reference to the

suggestion that she was simply the instrument of divine inspiration:

"Let no one deceive himself. Joan of Arc was no blind and passive

instrument of a supernatural power. The liberator of France _had

entire command of her personality_; she gave proof of this by her

independent action, both in decisions and in deeds."

I believe that the work of the educator consists primarily in

protecting the powers and directing them without disturbing them in

their expansion; and in the bringing of man into contact with the

spirit which is within him and which should operate through him.

VIII

INTELLIGENCE

Let us pause a moment to consider what is the "key" by means of which

we may bring about the realization of the liberty of the child; that

key which sets in motion the mechanisms essential to education.

The child who is "free to move about," and who perfects himself by so

doing, is he who has an "intelligent object" in his movements; the

child who is free to develop his inner personality, who perseveres in

a task for a considerable time, and organizes himself upon such a

fundamental phenomenon, is sustained and guided by an intelligent

purpose. Without this his persistence in work, his inner formation,

and his progress would not be possible. When we refrain from guiding

the subjugated child step by step, when, liberating the child from our

personal influence, we place him in an environment suited to him and

in contact with the means of development, we leave him confidently to

"his own intelligence." His motor activity will then direct itself to

definite actions: he will wash his hands and face, sweep the room,

dust the furniture, change his clothes, spread the rugs, lay the

table, cultivate plants, and take care of animals. He will choose the

tasks conducive to his development and persist in them, attracted and

guided by his interest towards a sensory material which leads him to

distinguish one thing from another, to select, to reason, to correct

himself; and the acquirements thus made are not only "a cause of

internal growth" but a strong propulsive force to further progress.

Thus, passing from simple objects to objects of ever increasing

complexity, he becomes possessed of a culture; moreover, he organizes

his character by means of the internal order which forms itself within

him, and by the skill which he acquires.

Therefore, when we leave the child to himself, we leave him to his

intelligence, not, as is commonly supposed, "to his instincts,"

meaning by the word "instincts" those designated as animal instincts.

We are so accustomed to; treat children like dogs and other domestic

animals, that a "free child" makes us think of a dog, barking,

jumping, and stealing dainties. And so accustomed are we to regard as

manifestations of evil instincts the _rebellions_ of the child treated

as a beast, his obscure protests and desperations, or the protective

devices he has to invent to save himself from such a humiliating

situation, that, by way of elevating him, we first compare him to

plants and flowers, and then actually try to keep him as far as

possible in the state of physical immobility of vegetables, subjecting

him to the same sensations, reducing him to slavery. But he never

becomes the "plant with angelic perfume" we would fain believe him to

be; rather do signs of corruption gradually manifest themselves as his

"human substance" mortifies and dies.

But when we leave the child "free as a man" in the palestra of his own

intelligence, his type changes entirely. It is of this type we must

form new conceptions in discussing the question of "liberty."

That of intelligence should also, I believe, be the key to the problem

of the social liberty of man. We have heard much talk of late years,

of a very superficial kind, concerning "liberty of thought." The issue

being obscured by prejudices akin to those prevalent concerning

children, it has been supposed that man would be "liberated" were he

"abandoned" to his own thoughts. But was he capable of "thinking"? Was

not the epoch of such "freedom" also that of cerebral neurasthenia?

Was it not also that epoch when laws for extending social rights to

illiterates were under discussion?

Now let us take an example: if we told a sick person to choose between

disease and health, would this make him free to do so? If we offer an

uneducated peasant good and bad paper money, leaving him "free to

choose" which he will take, and he chooses the bad notes, he is not

free, he is cheated; if he chooses the good, he is not free, he is

lucky. He will be free when he has sufficient knowledge not only to

distinguish the good from the bad, but to understand the social

utility of each. It is the giving of this "internal formation" which

makes a man free, irrespective of a "social sanction" which is merely

an external conquest of liberty. If the liberty of man were such a

simple problem, we should only need to pass a law, enabling the blind

to see and the deaf to hear, in order to restore "poor humanity" to

health.

Our honesty ought to make us recognize one day that the fundamental

rights of man are those of his own "formation," free from obstacles,

free from slavery, and free to draw from his environment the means

required for his development. In short, it is in education that we

shall find the fundamental solution of the social problems connected

with "personality."

Deeply instructive is the revelation made to us by the children, that

"the intelligence" is the key which reveals the secrets of their

formation, and is the actual means of their internal construction.

The hygiene of the intelligence thus assumes cardinal importance. When

intelligence is recognized as the means of formation, the pivot of

life itself, it can no longer be exhausted for dubious ends, or

oppressed and suffocated without discernment.

At a not-far-distant day, the intelligence of children must become the

object of treatment much wiser and more elaborate than that which we

now bestow on their bodies, to adjuncts of which, such as teeth,

nails, and hair, we devote costly and laborious processes. When we

reflect that a mother who is perfectly conscious of the dangers and

remedies connected with the hair of her child, can oppress and enslave

his intelligence quite unknowingly, we are at once obliged to admit

that the new road leading to civilization must needs be a long one, if

such contrasts in our attitude to the superfluities and the essentials

of life are still possible at the present day.

* * * * *

What is intelligence? Without rising to the heights of the definitions

given by the philosophers, we may, for the moment, consider the sum of

those reflex and associative or reproductive activities which enable

the mind to construct itself, putting it into relation with the

environment. According to Bain, the consciousness of difference is the

beginning of every intellectual exercise; the first step of the mind

is appreciation of "distinction." The bases of its perceptive

functions towards the external world are the "sensations." To collect

facts and distinguish between them is the initial process in

intellectual construction.

Let us try to infuse a little more precision and clarity into the

analysis of intelligence.

The first characteristic which presents itself to us as an indication

of intellectual development is related to _time_. The masses are so

much alive to this primitive characteristic, that the popular

expression "quick" is synonymous with intelligent. To be rapid in

reacting to a stimulus, in the association of ideas, in the capacity

of formulating a judgment--this is the most obvious external

manifestation of intelligence. This "quickness" is certainly related

to the capacity for receiving impressions from the environment,

elaborating images, and externalizing the internal results. All these

activities may be developed by means of an exercise comparable to a

system of mental "gymnastics" to collect numerous sensations, to put

them constantly in relation one with another, to deduce judgments

therefrom, to acquire the habit of manifesting these freely, all this

ought, as the psychologists would say, to render the conductive

channels and the associative channels more and more permeable, and the

"period of reaction" ever briefer. As in intelligent muscular

movement, the repetition of the act not only renders it more perfect

in itself, but more rapid in execution. An intelligent child at school

is not only one who understands, but one who understands quickly. On

the other hand, one who learns the same things, but who takes a longer

time in so doing, say two years instead of one, is _slow_. Of a

"quick" child, the people say that "nothing escapes him"; his

attention is always on the alert, and he is ready to receive every

kind of stimulus: as a sensitive scale will show the slightest

variation in weight, so the sensitive brain will respond to the

slightest appeal. It is Equally rapid in its associative processes:

"He understands in a flash" is a familiar saying to indicate accurate

conception.

Now an exercise which "puts in motion" the intellectual mechanisms

can only be an "auto-exercise." It is impossible that another person,

exercising himself in our stead, should make us acquire skill.

The sensory exercises arouse and intensify the central activities in

our children. When, sense and stimulus duly isolated, the child has

clear perceptions in his consciousness; when sensations of heat, cold,

roughness, smoothness, weight, and lightness, when a sound, an

isolated noise, are perceived by him, when, in almost complete

silence, he closes his eyes and waits for a voice to murmur a word, it

is as if the external world had knocked at the door of his soul,

awakening its activities. And further, when the multitudinous

sensations are all contained in the richness of the environment, the

two react harmoniously one upon the other, intensifying the activities

that have been awakened: this is exemplified in the case of the child

absorbed in coloring his designs, who will choose the most beautiful

tints while music is being played, or in that of another who,

contemplating the gay and gracious environment of the school and the

flowering plants, will sing his song to perfection.

The first characteristic which manifests itself in our children, after

their process of auto-education has been initiated, is that their

reactions become ever more ready and more rapid: a sensory stimulus

which might before have passed unobserved or might have roused a

languid interest, is vividly perceived. The relation between things is

easily recognized, and thus errors in their use are quickly detected,

judged, and corrected. By means of the sensory gymnastics the child

carries out just this primordial and fundamental exercise of the

intelligence, which _awakens and sets in motion_ the central nervous

mechanisms.

When we see these external manifestations of our quick and active

children--sensitive to the slightest call, ready to run swiftly

towards us without relaxing the attention they give to their own

movements and to all the external objects they encounter--and compare

them with the torpid children in the ordinary schools--clumsy in their

movements, indifferent to stimuli, incapable of spontaneous

association of ideas--we are led to think of the civilization of our

own days as compared with that of olden times. The civil environment

of bygone years, as compared with our own, was more leisurely: we have

learnt how to save time. The stage-coach was once the means of

transport, whereas now we travel in motor-cars and even in aeroplanes;

the voice was the medium of speech from a distance, whereas now we

speak through the telephone; men killed each other one by one, whereas

now they kill each other _en masse_. All this makes us realize that

our civilization is not based upon "respect for life" and "respect for

the soul," but rather is it based upon "respect for time." It is

solely in an external sense that civilization has pursued its course.

It has become more rapid, it has set in motion _machinery_.

But man has not had the same preparation to keep up with it:

individuals have not _accelerated_ themselves methodically; the

children of this bewildering environment are not new men, more active,

readier, more intelligent. The transformed human personality has not

yet arisen ready to meet all eventualities and to utilize for his own

benefit the external conquests of his environment. Torpid man saves

time and money in this civilization; but his soul remains defrauded

and oppressed.

If he does not rise to the task of reforming himself in harmony with

the new world he has created, he runs the risk of being some day

overthrown and crushed by it.

* * * * *

The swift reactions occurring among our children are not merely an

external manifestation of the intelligence. They are related not only

to the _exercise_, but also to the _order_ which has been established

within: and it is this intimate work of rearrangement which is in

itself a more exact indication of intellectual formation.

Order is, in short, the true key to rapidity of reaction. In a chaotic

mind, the recognition of a sensation is no less difficult than the

elaboration of a reasoned discourse. In all things, social as well as

others, it is organization and order which make it possible to proceed

rapidly.

"To be able to distinguish" is the characteristic sign of

intelligence: to _distinguish_ is to arrange and also, in life, it is

to prepare for "creation."

Creation finds its expansion in _order_. We find this conception in

the Genesis of Scripture. God did not begin to create without

preparation; and this preparation was the introduction of order into

chaos. "And God divided the light from the darkness. And he said: Let

the waters be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land

appear." The consciousness may possess a rich and varied content; but

when there is _mental confusion_, the intelligence does not appear.

Its appearance is exactly like the kindling of a light which makes it

possible to distinguish things clearly: "Let there be light."

Thus we may justly say that to help the development of the

intelligence is to help to put the images of the consciousness in

order.

We ought to think of the mental state of the little child of three

years old, who has already looked upon a world. How often he has

fallen asleep utterly weary from having seen so many things. It has

not occurred to any one that for him to walk is, in fact, to work;

that seeing and hearing, when the organs are not as yet accommodated,

so that he is obliged to be perpetually correcting the errors of his

senses, and verifying with his hand what he cannot as yet appraise

correctly with his eye, is a great exertion. Hence the little one who

is over-taxed by stimuli, in places where these abound, cries or falls

asleep.

The little child of three years old carries within him a heavy

_chaos_.

He is like a man who has accumulated an immense quantity of books,

piled up without any order, and who asks himself "What shall I do with

them?" When will he be able to arrange them in such fashion as to

enable him to say: "I possess a library"?

By means of our so-called "sensory exercises" we make it possible for

the child to _distinguish_ and to _classify_. Our sensory material, in

fact, analyses and represents the attributes of things: dimensions,

forms, colors, smoothness or roughness of surface, weight,

temperature, flavor, noise, sounds. It is the qualities of the

objects, not the objects themselves which are important; although

these qualities, isolated one from the other, are themselves

represented by objects. For the attributes long, short, thick, thin,

large, small, red, yellow, green, hot, cold, heavy, light, rough,

smooth, scented, noisy, resonant, we have a like number of

corresponding "objects" arranged in graduated series. This gradation

is important for the establishment of order; indeed, the attributes of

the objects differ not only in quality, but also in quantity. They may

be more or less high or more or less low, more or less thick or more

or less thin; the sounds have various tones; the colors have various

degrees of intensity; the shapes may resemble each other in varying

degrees; the states of roughness and smoothness are by no means

absolute.

The material for the education of the senses lends itself to the

purpose of distinguishing between these things. First of all it

enables the child to ascertain the _identity_ of two stimuli by means

of numerous exercises in matching and fitting. Afterwards _difference_

is appreciated when the lessons direct the child's attention to the

external objects of a series: light, dark, long, short.

At last he begins to distinguish the _degrees of the various

attributes_, arranging a series of objects in gradation, such as the

tablets which show the various degrees of intensity of the same

chromatic tone; the bells which produce the notes of an octave, the

objects which represent length in decimal proportions, or thickness in

centimetric proportions, etc.

These exercises, which are so attractive to children, are, as we have

seen, repeated by them indefinitely. The teacher puts the seal upon

each acquisition with a word; thus the classification is complete, and

finally has its schedule: that is, it becomes possible to recall the

attribute and its _image_ by a name.

Now as we have no possible means of distinguishing things other than

by their attributes, the classification of these entails a fundamental

order of arrangement comprehending everything. Henceforth the world is

no longer a chaos for the child; his mind bears some resemblance to

the orderly shelves of a library or a rich museum; each object is in

its place, in its proper category. And each acquisition he makes will

be no longer merely "stored," but duly "allocated." This primitive

order will never be disturbed, but only enriched by fresh material.

Thus the child, having acquired the power of distinguishing one thing

from another, has laid the foundations of the intelligence. It is

unnecessary to repeat what an internal impulse the acquired order

contributes towards the seeking after objects in the environment;

henceforth the child "recognizes" the objects which surround him. When

he discovers with so much emotion that the sky is blue, that his hand

is smooth, that the window is rectangular, he does not in reality

discover sky, nor hand, nor window, but he discovers their position in

the order of his mind by arrangement of his ideas. And this determines

a stable equilibrium in the internal personality, which produces calm,

strength, and the possibility of fresh conquests, just as the muscles

which have coordinated their functions enable the body to maintain its

equilibrium, and to acquire that stability and security which

facilitate all movements. This order conduces to an economy of time

and strength; like a well-arranged museum, it saves the time and

strength of inquirers. The child can therefore perform a greater

quantity of work without fatigue, and can react to stimuli in a

briefer space of time.

* * * * *

To be able to distinguish, classify, and catalogue external things on

the basis of a secure order already established in the mind--this is

at once intelligence and culture. This is, indeed, the popular

conception; when an educated person can recognize an author by his

style, or the characteristics of the literary compositions of a

period, he is pronounced "versed (_intelligente_) in literature." In

the same way we say of one who can recognize a painter by the manner

in which he lays his colors on the canvas, or fix the period of a

sculptor from the fragment of a bas-relief, that he is "versed

(_intelligente_) in art." The scientist is of the same type. He is

able to observe things, and to give due value even to their minutest

details; hence the differences between the characteristics of things

are clearly perceived and classified. The scientist distinguishes

objects in accordance with the orderly content of his mind. A

seedling, a microbe, an animal or the remains of an animal, are not

enigmas to him, though in themselves they may be strange to him. We

may say the same of the chemist, the physicist, the geologist, the

archaeologist.

It is not the accumulation of a direct knowledge of things which forms

the man of letters, the scientist, and the connoisseur; it is the

prepared order established in the mind which is to receive such

knowledge. On the other hand, the uncultivated person has only the

direct knowledge of objects; such a person may be a lady who spends a

great part of the night reading books, or a gardener who spends his

life making material distinctions between the plants in his garden.

The knowledge of such uncultured minds is not only disorderly, but it

is confined to the objects with which it comes into direct contact,

whereas the knowledge of the scientist is infinite, because,

possessing the power of classifying the attributes of things, he can

recognize them all, and determine now the class, now the

relationships, now the origins of each; facts much more profound than

the actual things could of themselves reveal.

Now our children, after the manner of the connoisseur of art and the

man of science, recognize objects in the external world by means of

their attributes and classify them; hence they are sensitive to all

objects; everything possesses a value for them. Uncultured children,

on the other hand, pass blind and deaf close to things, just as an

ignorant man passes by a work of art or listens to a performance of

classical music without recognition or enjoyment.

The educational methods now in use proceed on lines exactly the

reverse of ours; having first abolished spontaneous activity, they

present objects with their accumulation of attributes directly to the

child, calling attention to each attribute, and hoping that from all

this mass the mind of the child will be able to abstract the

attributes themselves, without any guidance or order. Thus they create

in a passive being an artificial chaos, more limited than that which

the natural world would offer.

The "objective" method now in use, which consists in presenting an

object and noting all its attributes--that is, describing it, is

nothing but a "sensory" variation on the customary mnemonic method;

instead of describing an absent object, a present object is described;

instead of the imagination alone working to effect its reconstruction,

the senses intervene; this is done so that the distinctive qualities

of the object itself should be better remembered. The passive mind

receives images, which are limited to the objects presented; and which

are "stored up" without any order. As a fact, every object may have

infinite attributes; and if, as often happens in object-lessons, the

origins and ultimate ends of the object itself are included among

these attributes, the mind has literally to range throughout the

universe. If, for instance, in an object lesson on coffee, which I

heard given in a Kindergarten school, the object is described and the

attention of the children directed to its size, its color, its shape,

its aroma, its flavor, its temperature; and then if the teacher goes

on to describe the plant and the manner in which the substance was

brought to Europe across the ocean, and, finally, lighting a

spirit-lamp, boils the water, grinds the berries and prepares the

beverage, the mind has been led to wander in infinite spaces, but the

subject has not been exhausted. For it would be possible to go on to

describe the exciting effects of coffee, caffeine, which is extracted

from the berry, and many other things. Such an analysis would spread

like spilt oil until finally dispersed, and the outcome would be of no

use in any way. If, indeed, we should ask a child so instructed: "What

is coffee, then?" he might well reply: "It is such a long story that I

cannot remember it." A notion so vague (I cannot certainly say so

complete!) fatigues and encumbers the mind and can never transform

itself into a dynamic excitation of similar associations. The efforts

the child makes will be, at the most, efforts of memory to recall the

history of coffee. If associations are formed in his mind, they will

be inferior associations of contiguity: his mind will wander from the

teacher who is speaking to the ocean that was traversed, to the

dining-table at home on which coffee appears in cups every day; in

other words, it will stray aimlessly as does the idle mind when it

"allows itself" to wander from the continuity of its passive

associations.

In this kind of _reverie_ to which the minds of children give

themselves up, there is no sign of internal activity, far less of any

individual difference. Children subjected to the object-lesson system

always remain purely receptive beings; or, if we prefer to put it so,

storehouses in which new objects are continually deposited.

No activity is thus aroused and directed towards the object, in order

to recognize its qualities in such a manner that the child himself

forms an idea of it; nor can the possibility of connecting other

objects with the first by their common characteristics arise in his

mind. For in what particular does any object resemble the others? In

its use?

When we associate the images of different objects by similarity, we

should extract from the whole the qualities which the objects

themselves have in common. If, for instance, we say that two

rectangular tablets are alike, we have first extracted from the

numerous qualities of these tablets such facts as that they are of

wood, that they are polished, smooth, colored, of the same

temperature, etc., the quality relating to their _shape_. They are

alike in _shape_. This may suggest a long series of objects: the top

of the table, the window, etc.; but before such a result as this can

be achieved, it is necessary that the mind should first be capable of

abstracting from the numerous attributes of these objects the quality

of _rectangular shape_. The work of the mind in this quest must

necessarily be _active_; it analyzes the object, extracts a determined

attribute therefrom, and under the guidance of this determined

attribute makes a synthesis associating many objects by the same

medium of connection. If this capacity for the selecting of single

attributes among all those proper to the object be not acquired,

association by means of similarity, synthesis, and all the higher work

of the intelligence becomes impossible. Moreover, this is intellectual

work in reality, because the essential quality of the intelligence is

not to "photograph" objects, and "keep them one upon the other" like

the pages of an album, or juxtaposed like the stones in a pavement.

Such a labor of mere "deposit" is an outrage on the intellectual

nature. The intelligence, with its characteristic orderliness and

power of discrimination, is capable of distinguishing and extracting

the dominant characteristics of objects, and it is upon these that it

proceeds to build up its internal structures.

Now our children, whose minds are thus ordered in relation to the

classification of attributes by the pedagogic aid they have received,

are led, not only to observe objects according to all the attributes

they have analyzed, but also to distinguish identities, differences,

and resemblances; and this work renders the extraction of one of the

qualities corresponding to one of the sensory groups which have been

considered apart, easy and spontaneous. That is to say, it will be

easy for the child thus to recognize the various qualities of an

object, to note, for instance, that certain objects are alike in form,

or alike in color; because "forms" and "colors" have already been

grouped into very distinctive categories, and they therefore recall

series of objects by similarity. This classification of attributes is

a kind of loadstone; it is an attractive force of a determined group

of qualities; and the objects which have this quality are attracted

thereto and united one with another; this is association by

similitude, almost of a mechanical kind. Books are of the shape of

prisms, one of our children might say; and such a pronouncement would

be the conclusion arrived at by a very complex mental process, were it

not that prismatic forms already existed as a well-defined series in

his mind, attracting to itself all the surrounding objects which

possess the same character. Thus the whiteness of sheets of paper,

interrupted by dark signs, may be attracted, by the colors

systematized in the mind, into a synthetic whole, which might make

the child say: Books are sheets of white printed paper.

It is in this _active_ work that individual differences may manifest

themselves. What will be the group of attributes which will attract

similar objects? And what will be the prevailing characteristic chosen

for the purpose of association by similarity? One child will note that

a curtain is light green; another that the same curtain is light in

weight; one will be struck by the whiteness of a hand, another by the

smoothness of its skin. For one child the window will be a rectangle;

to another it is something through which the blue of the sky may be

seen. The choice of prevailing characteristics made by children

becomes a "natural selection" harmonizing with their own innate

tendencies.

In like manner, a scientist will choose the characters _most useful_

to his associations. An anthropologist may choose the shape of the

head to distinguish the human races, and another might choose the

cutaneous pigment--either will serve the purpose. Each anthropologist

may have the most accurate knowledge of the external characteristics

of men; but the important matter consists in finding a characteristic

which will serve as a basis for classification: that is to say, a

characteristic on which it will be possible to group numerous

characteristics in the order of similitude. Purely practical persons

would consider man from the utilitarian rather than from the

scientific point of view; a maker of hats would single out the

dimensions of the head from among other human characteristics; an

orator would consider man from the point of view of his susceptibility

to the spoken word. But _selection_ is the fundamental necessity which

enables us to realize things; to emerge from the vague into the

practical, from aimless contemplation into the sphere of action.

Every created thing in existence is characterized by the fact that it

has _limitations_. Our own psycho-sensory organization is founded upon

a selection. What are the functions of the senses, but to respond to a

determined series of vibrations and to no others? Thus the eye limits

light and the ear sounds. In forming the contents of the mind the

first step is, therefore, a selection, necessarily and materially

limited. Nevertheless, the mind imposes still further limits on the

selection possible to the senses, fashioning it upon the activity of

internal choice. Thus attention is fixed upon determined objects and

not upon all objects; and the volition _chooses_ the actions which are

really to be performed from among a multitude of possible actions.

It is in like fashion that the lofty work of the intelligence is

accomplished; by an analogous action of attention and internal will,

it abstracts the dominant characteristics of things, and thus succeeds

in associating their images, and keeping them in the foreground of

consciousness. It ceases to consider an immense amount of ballast

which would render its context formless and confused. Every superior

mind distinguishes the essential form from the superfluous, rejecting

the latter, and thus it is enabled to achieve its characteristic,

clear, delicate, and vital activities. It is capable of extracting

that which is useful to its creative life, and thus finds in the

cosmos the means of salvation. Without this characteristic activity,

the intelligence cannot construct itself; it would be like an

attention that wanders from thing to thing without ever fixing upon

any one of them, and like a will that can never decide upon any

definite action.

"It is possible to suppose," says James, "that a God could, without

impairing his activity, simultaneously behold all the minutest

portions of the world. But if our human attention should be thus

dissipated, we should merely contemplate all things vacuously, without

ever finding occasion to do any particular act."

It is one of the marvelous phenomena of life that it is impossible to

realize anything, without determining limits; that mysterious law

which ordains that every living being has its "form" and "stature,"

unlike the minerals, which are indefinite in form and dimensions, is

repeated in the psychical life. Its development, its auto-creation, is

nothing but a determination even more precise, a progressive

"concentration"; it is thus that from the primitive chaos our internal

characteristic form is gradually shaped and chiselled.

The capacity for forming a conception of a thing, for judging and

reasoning, has always this foundation. When, after having noted the

usual qualities of a column, we abstract the general truth that the

column is a support, this synthetic idea is based upon a selected

quality. Thus in the judgment we may pronounce: columns are

cylindrical, we have abstracted one quality from among the many others

we could have adduced, as, columns are cold, they are hard, they are a

composition of carbonate of lime, etc. It is only the capacity for

such a selection which makes reasoning possible. When, for example, in

the demonstration of the theorem of Pythagoras, children handle the

various pieces of the metal insets, they should start from the point

at which they become aware that a rectangle is equal to the rhomb, and

a square is equal to the same rhomb. It is the perception of this

truth which makes it possible to go on to the following reasoning:

therefore the square and the rectangle are equal to each other. If it

had not been possible to determine this attribute, the mind could not

have arrived at any conclusion. The mind has succeeded in discovering

an attribute common to two dissimilar figures; and it is this

discovery which may lead to a series of conclusions by means of which

the theorem of Pythagoras will be finally demonstrated.

* * * * *

Now, as in the case of will, decision presupposes a methodical

exercise of the impulsive and inhibitory forces, only to be performed

by the individual himself, until habits have been established, so in

case of the intelligence, the individual must exercise himself in his

activities of association and selection, guided and aided by external

means, until he has developed, by the definitive elimination of

certain ideas and the choice of others, "mental habits" characteristic

of the individual, characteristic of the "type." Because, underlying

all the internal activities the mind can construct, there is, as the

phenomena of attention show us, the individual tendency, the "nature."

There is, undoubtedly, a fundamental difference between understanding

and learning the reasoning of others, and being able "to reason,"

between learning how an artist may see the external world according to

his prevailing interest in color, harmony, and form, and actually

seeing the external world about a fulcrum which sustains one's own

æsthetical creation. In the mind of one who "learns the things of

others" we may find, as in a sack of old clothes hanging over the

shoulders of a hawker, solutions of the problems of Euclid, together

with the images of Raphael's works, ideas of history and geography,

and rules of style, huddled together with a like indifference and a

like sensation of "weight." While, on the other hand, he who uses all

these things for his own life, is like the person who is assisted in

attaining his own welfare, his own relief, his own comfort by those

same objects which are merely burdens when in the sack of the hawker.

Such objects are, however, no longer huddled together without order

and without purpose in a closed bag, but set out in the spacious rooms

of a well-ordered house. The mind which constructs may contain a great

deal more than that mind in which pieces of knowledge are heaped up as

in the bag; and in that mind, as in the house, the objects are clearly

divided one from another, harmoniously arranged, and distinctive in

their uses.

Between "understanding" because another person seeks to impress upon

us the explanation of a thing by speech, and "understanding" the thing

of ourselves, there is an immeasurable distance; the two are

comparable to the impression made in soft wax, which will subsequently

be effaced and replaced by other impressions, and the form chiselled

in the marble by an artist, as his creation. He who understands of

himself has an unforeseen impression; he feels that his consciousness

has been liberated, and something luminous shines forth within him.

Understanding, then, is not a matter of indifference; it is the

beginning of _something_; sometimes it is the beginning of a life

which renews itself within us. Perhaps no emotion is more fruitful for

man than the intellectual emotion. He who makes a discovery rich in

results certainly enjoys the greatest of human felicities; but even he

who merely "understands" gets a lofty enjoyment which will rise

superior to and overcome the most acute suffering. Indeed, he who is

oppressed by a misfortune, if he can be brought to differentiate his

own case from that of another, or to see a reason for his affliction,

experiences relief, and a "sense of salvation." Amidst the confused

darkness in which he was plunged, a consoling ray of intellectual

light has reached him. The difficult matter, indeed, is to find the

way of escape in the hour of darkness. When we reflect that a dog may

die of grief on the grave of his master, and that a mother can survive

on the grave of her only son, we see at once that it is the light of

_reason_ which makes the difference between the two. The dog _cannot

reason on the matter_; it may die because no light can penetrate the

darkness of its intelligence to overcome the depression of its grief.

But the thought of a universal justice, the living memory of the lost

one which remains to us, saves the human being. And by degrees, not

forgetfulness, which alone can save the animal, but the connection

which the intelligence establishes with the universe, restores calm to

the suffering soul. Such comfort could never be derived from the dry

lesson of a professor, from memorizing the theory of a savant who is

not in sympathy with the state of our soul. When we say, "to give

ourselves a reason," "to derive strength from a principle," we imply

that the ever-inquiring intelligence should be left at liberty to

perform its work of reconstruction and salvation.

Now if intelligence in "comprehending" may actually prove our

salvation when in danger of death, what a source of enjoyment it

should prove to man!

When we talk of "the opening of the mind," we mean a creative

phenomenon, which is not the weak result of an impression violently

made from without. The opening of the mind is the _active

comprehension_ which accompanies great emotions, and which is

therefore felt as a spiritual event.

I once knew a motherless girl, who was so much depressed by the arid

teaching of her school, that she had become almost incapable of study

and even of understanding the things which were taught her. Her life

of solitude, lacking in natural affection, was a further aggravation

of her mental fatigue. Her father decided that she should live for a

year or two in the open country like a little savage; he then brought

her back to town, and placed her under the private direction of a

number of "professors." The girl studied and learned, but remained

passive and weary. Every now and then her father would say: "Is your

mind opening again?" and the girl always replied: "I do not know. What

do you mean?" Owing to a curious coincidence in my life, this girl was

confided to my sole care; and it was thus that I, when I was still a

medical student, made my first pedagogic experiment, upon which I

cannot linger now, though it would be worthy of interest. One day we

were together and when she was at work on organic chemistry, she broke

off, and looking at me with beaming eyes, said: "Here it is now! I

_do_ understand!" She then got up and went away, calling out aloud:

"Father, father! My mind has opened!" I, not then knowing the girl's

history, was astonished and agitated. She had taken her father's hand,

and was saying: "Now I can tell you, yes, yes; I did not know what it

meant before; my mind has opened." The joy of father and daughter and

their union at that moment made me think of the joys and wellsprings

of life which we destroy by enslaving the intelligence.

Indeed, every intellectual conquest is a wellspring of joy to our free

children. This is the "pleasure" to which they are now most

susceptible, and which makes them scorn lower pleasures; it is after

having tasted of this that; our little ones despise sweetmeats, toys,

and vanities.

It is this which makes them sublime to the eyes of those who

contemplate them.

Their pleasure is that lofty pleasure which distinguish man from the

brute, and can save us even from the desolation of grief and darkness.

When it is made a reproach to our method that it seeks to promote the

"pleasure" of the child, and that this is immoral, it is the child and

not the method which is insulted. For the essence of this reproach is

the calumny against the child, who is considered by all as on a level

with the beasts, and whose "pleasure" is supposed to lie solely in

gluttony and idleness, and worse. But none of these could keep the

child's "pleasure" alive for hours and days and years. It is only when

he has laid hold on "humane pleasure" that he persists in it, and

lives with a joy which is comparable to that of the young girl who ran

to her father to proclaim the end of the darkness in which she had

languished for years.

May it not perhaps be that those "crises," which are to-day but the

intellectual illuminations of genius when it discovers a truth,

represent a natural phenomenon of psychical life? May not the

manifestation of the genius be but the manifestation of a "vigorous

life," saved from perils by its exceptional individuality, and

therefore itself alone capable of revealing the true nature of man?

His type would then be the common one, and all men, in a greater or

less degree, would seem to be of the same "species." The paths the

child follows in the active "construction" of his individuality are

indeed identical with those followed by the genius. His

characteristics are absorbed attention, a profound concentration which

isolates him from all the stimuli of his environment, and corresponds

in intensity and duration to the development of spiritual activities.

As in genius, this concentration is not without results, but is the

source of intellectual crises, of rapid internal developments, and,

above all, of an "external activity" which expresses itself in work.

We may say, then, that the genius is the man who has burst his bonds

asunder, who has maintained his liberty, and who has upheld before the

eyes of the multitude the standard of the humanity conquered by him.

Nearly all the manifestations of those men who liberated themselves

from the external bondage of their times are to be noted in our

children. Such, for instance, is that sublime "spiritual obedience,"

at present still unknown to the majority of mankind, with the

exception of monks, who, however, often recognize it only in theory,

and contemplate it only in the examples given by the saints; such

again are those means necessary to the construction of a strong

internal life which form part of the preparation for the cloistered

life in the methodical "meditations" of those about to enter upon it.

No persons, with the exception of monks, practise meditation. We can

hardly distinguish meditation from methods for "learning"

intellectually. We know, for example, that to read a great number of

books consecutively, dissipates our powers and our capacity for

thought; and that to learn a piece of poetry by heart means to repeat

it until it is engraven on our minds: and that all this is not

"meditation."

He who commits a verse of Dante to memory and he who meditates upon a

verse of the gospel, performs a totally different task. The canto

will "adorn" the mind on which it is impressed for a certain time,

without leaving any lasting trace upon it. The verse which has been

the subject of meditation will have a transforming and edifying

effect. He who meditates clears his mind as far as possible of every

other image, and tries to concentrate upon the subject of meditation

in such a manner that all the internal activities will be polarised

thereby: or, as the monks say, "all the powers of the mind."

The expected result of the meditation is "an internal fruit of

strength"; the soul is strengthened and unified, it becomes active; it

can then act upon the seed around which it has concentrated and cause

it to become fruitful.

Now the method chosen by our children in following their natural

development is "meditation," for in no other way would they be led to

linger so long over each individual task, and so to derive a gradual

internal maturation therefrom. The aim of the children who persevere

in their work with an object, is certainly not to "learn"; they are

drawn to it by the needs of their inner life, which must be organized

and developed by its means. In this manner they imitate and carry on

their "growth." This is the habit by which they gradually coordinate

and enrich their intelligence. As they meditate, they enter upon that

path of progress which will continue without end.

It is after an exercise of meditation on the objects that our children

become capable of enjoying "the silence exercise"; and then, having

been rendered delicately susceptible to impressions, they try to make

no noise when they move, to refrain from awkward actions, because they

are enjoying the fruit of the "concentration" of the spirit.

It is thus that their personality is unified and strengthened. The

exercise which serves as the means to this end is designed gradually

to perfect the accuracy with which they perceive the external world,

observing, reasoning, and correcting the errors of the senses in a

sustained and spontaneous activity. It is they who act, they who

choose the objects, they who persevere in their work, they who seek to

win from their environment the possibility of concentrating their

minds upon it. Each one of them moves in obedience to the motor power

within him. They are not disturbed by a teacher, by a being obviously

superior to themselves, who intimidates the shrinking poverty of those

who are beginning life by her lofty intellectual riches, who darkens

rather than illuminates, who wearies rather than refreshes; but they

live in peace with her who, almost a priestess, is yet a servant. As

in some ideal convent, humility, simplicity, and work make up the

environment where he who meditates will some day feel within himself

the clearness of vision, the intuition, almost the sensibility, which

make one ready to receive the truth.

To a different end, but by the same road, amidst the silence, the

simplicity, and the humility of the monastery, the spirit prepares

itself to receive the faith at the outset of life.

Many years ago, when I first received the impression that our children

revealed general principles of life which in practise we are only

privileged to encounter among the intellectual and spiritual _élite_

of society, and that for this reason they were at the same time the

revealers of a form of unconscious oppression which weighed down

humanity, deforming the inner life, I spoke at length upon the matter

to an intellectual lady, who was much interested in my "theories,"

and very anxious that I should make them the subject of an elaborate

philosophical treatise; but she could not bring herself to accept the

idea that it was a question of an experimental process. When I spoke

of the children, she showed some impatience: "Oh, yes, I quite

understand all about these children; in intelligence they are so many

geniuses, and in goodness so many angels." But when, after some

persuasion, I succeeded in making her come and _see_ for herself, she

took my hands and looked earnestly in my face: "Have you never

thought," she asked, "that you may die at any moment?... Write at

once, anyhow, in all haste, as you would write a will, a simple

description of the facts, that you may not carry away this secret with

you to the grave."

Nevertheless, I was in excellent health.

* * * * *

If we examine the mental labors of men of genius to whom we owe

discoveries which have opened new paths to thought, and have given us

new sources of well-being and social progress, we shall have to admit

that in themselves they cannot be described as extraordinary

processes, inaccessible to mediocrity. "Genius coincides with the

possession in a very high degree of the power of association by

similarity. This is the essential quality of genius," says Bain. Even

at the "central point" of discovery, it is only by accurate

observation and a very simple process of reasoning, of which most

persons would consider themselves capable, that the discovery is made.

At most it is due to a marshalling of "evidences" which, however,

passed unnoticed by all but the discoverer.

We may say that genius has the faculty of isolating a fact in the

consciousness, and of so distinguishing it from all others that it is

as if a single ray of light should fall upon a diamond in a dark room.

This single idea, then, causes a complete revolution in the

consciousness, and is capable of constructing something infinitely

great and precious for all humanity.

But it is the intense significance of ordinary things, and not the

abnormal, which is the main factor; it is the isolation in a

homogeneous field, not the intrinsic value of the thing, which

determines the marvelous phenomenon. Perhaps within countless

thousands of chaotic perceptions the gem had existed, stored up amidst

a multitude of useless and cumbrous objects, and had never succeeded

in arresting attention; meanwhile inertia continued to allow new

objects to penetrate continually within the distended and impotent

walls. After a discovery, many will perceive that they themselves held

the same truth within them; but in this case it is not the truth

itself that has value, but the man who is capable of appreciating it

and bringing it into relation with action.

But very often it is not the case that the newly discovered truth

already exists in the chaos of obscure consciousness; and then the new

light, simple though it be, can find no way by which to penetrate into

the mind.

It is rejected as something strange and fallacious; and a certain

lapse of time is necessary, a certain coordination of the

intelligence, to enable the "novelty" to enter. Yet some day it will

be considered clear as crystal. It was not the "nature" of man which

shrank from it, but his "errors." These errors not only make man

incapable of production, but are in themselves hostile to receptivity.

Thus it often happens that the pioneers of salvation are persecuted by

a sort of unconscious ingratitude, which is the fruit of spiritual

darkness.

What was the argument of Christopher Columbus? He thought: "If the

earth is really round, he who starts from a certain point and advances

steadily, will return to the point of departure." This was the _sum_

of the intellectual work which enriched mankind with a new world.

That a great continent should have lain in the track of Columbus, and

that he should have encountered this and not death, was the destiny

due to the chance of environment. The environment sometimes rewards

"small reasonings" of this kind in a surprising manner.

It was certainly not a great labor of human intelligence which brought

about these great results; it was the triumph of this idea over the

whole consciousness, and the heroic courage of the man, which gave it

its value. The great difficulty, for the man who had conceived the

idea, was to persevere until he could persuade others to help him in

his enterprise, to give him ships and followers. It was the _faith_

and not the _idea_ of Columbus which triumphed.

That simple and logical reasoning kindled within him something

infinitely more precious than intelligence, and enabled a single man

of humble origin, and almost uneducated, to present a world to a

queen.

We are told that Alessandro Volta's wife was ill with fever, and that

he, in accordance with the practise of his day, was preparing the

usual febrifuge, a broth of skinned frogs; it was a rainy day, and

when he hung up the dead frogs on the iron bar of the window, he

noticed that their legs contracted. "If dead muscles contract, it must

mean that some external force has penetrated them." This was the

simple argument of the "genius," the "great discoverer." And seeking

this force, Volta, by means of his piles, was able to wrest from the

earth electricity, which is, literally as well as figuratively, the

"gleam" of an immense progress. Laying due weight upon a little fact,

such as that of a dead being having moved, considering it soberly

without any fanciful additions, and fixing the mind upon the resulting

problem: Why does it move?--such was the lengthy process by which one

of the greatest conquests of civilization was achieved.

Akin to this was Galileo's discovery, when, standing in Pisa

Cathedral, he watched the oscillations of a hanging lamp. He observed

that the oscillations were all completed in the same space of time,

and the isochronism of the pendulum was the beginning of the

measurement of time for all men, and of the measurement of worlds for

the astronomer.

How simple, too, is the story of Newton, who felt an apple fall upon

him as he lay under a tree, and thought to himself: "Why did that

apple fall?" Such was the simple origin of the theory of the gravity

of bodies, and that of universal gravitation.

When we study of the life of Papin, we marvel at the culture which

placed him on a level with the most learned men of his times: as

physician, physiologist, and mathematician, he was distinguished and

honored by the universities of England and Germany. Nevertheless, what

gave him his value to humanity, and hence his greatness, was the fact

that his attention had been arrested by the sight of the lid of a

saucepan of boiling water raised by the steam. "Steam is a force which

could lift a piston as it lifts the cover of a saucepan, and become

the motor power of a machine." Papin's famous saucepan is a kind of

magic wand in the history of mankind, which thenceforth began to work

and travel without fatigue. How wonderful are such stories of great

discoveries arising from humble beginnings, and working miracles

throughout the world!

These, in their origins, resemble those living creatures, born of two

imperceptible microscopic cells, the fusion of which inevitably tends

to the creation of complex lives. To perceive exactly and to connect

the things perceived logically is the work of the highest

intelligence. But this work is characterized by a peculiar power of

attention, which causes the mind to dwell upon a subject in a species

of meditation, the characteristic mark of genius; the outcome is an

internal life _rich in activities_, just as the germinative cells are

the fruit of internal existences. It would seem that such mentalities

are distinguished from those of the ordinary type, not by their form,

but by their "force." It is the vigorous life from which those two

small intellectual sparks arise, which makes them so marvelous. If

they had not sprung from strong, independent personalities, capable of

persistent effort and heroic self-sacrifice, those little intellectual

works would have remained as things inert and negligible. Hence all

that strengthens the spiritual man may lead him in the footsteps of

the genius.

Thus, as regards the intelligence in itself, the work it has to

accomplish is a small matter, but it is clearly defined, and stripped

of superfluous complications. Simplicity is the guide to discovery;

simplicity which, like truth, should be naked. Very little is

necessary; but this little must constitute a powerful unity; the rest

is vanity.

And the greater this vanity, that is to say, the futile encumbrance of

the mind, the more will the light of the spirit be darkened and its

forces dissipated, making it difficult or impossible not only to

reason and act, but even to perceive reality, to see.

* * * * *

It would be interesting to make a rapid survey of those collective

individual errors by which the progress of a new discovery of a simple

kind, offering relief to suffering humanity, has been impeded; errors

which have even caused persistent denial of the existence of obvious

facts, merely because these were not generally known.

Let us consider for a moment the discovery of the cause of malaria.

This discovery, due to the Englishman, Ross, in connection with birds,

and to the Italian, Grassi, in connection with man, consists in having

found out that the plasmodium of malaria, which produces the malady,

is inoculated in man and in the various animals subject to it, by a

special kind of mosquito. Let us inquire what was the state of science

prior to this discovery. In 1880 Laveran had described an animal

micro-organism, which preyed upon the red corpuscles of the blood,

producing an attack of fever with the cycle of its existence.

Subsequent studies confirmed and elucidated this fact, and the

_plasmodium malariae_ became a matter of common knowledge. It was

known that animal micro-organisms, unlike vegetable micro-organisms,

after a cycle of life in which reproduction takes place by

scission--that is, by subdivision of a single body into several other

bodies equal to the first, give place to _sexual forms_, masculine and

feminine, which are separate, and incapable of scission, but are

designed for _fusion into one another_, after which the organism

recommences its cycle of scissions until it again reaches the sexual

forms.

Laveran had found that in the blood of sufferers who recover

spontaneously from malarial fever there are a great number of

corpuscles which have no longer the rounded forms of the plasmodia,

but are crescent-shaped and rayed. He took these to be transformations

of the plasmodia, "modified in form" and "incapable of producing

disease," and pronounced them to be "degenerate" organisms, almost as

if they had been deformed and exhausted by the "excess of work" they

had previously performed. These organisms were described as "Laveran's

degenerative forms." After the discovery of the transmission of

malaria in 1900, Laveran's "degenerative forms" were recognized as the

sexual individuals of the reproductive cycle: individuals which were

incapable of conjugation in the blood of man, and could only produce

new organisms in the body of the mosquito. We may well wonder: Why did

not Laveran simply recognize those sexual forms, and why did he not

seek for the period of conjugation in the plasmodia, which were animal

micro-organisms? If he had borne in mind the complete cycle of the

protozoa, he would have recognized them. But evidently Morel's

theories of the degeneration of man had made a much livelier

impression on his imagination; and his leap from these remote theories

to his interpretation of the plasmodia seemed an achievement of

"genius." It may be said that this "feat of genius," this visionary

generalization, prevented Laveran from seeing the truth. A form of

_arrogance_ and _levity_ is apparent in such errors.

Moreover, we are astonished by something still more serious: how came

it that hundreds and thousands of students throughout the world

accepted Laveran's error with their eyes shut, that not one among so

many took into consideration on his own account the cycle of the

protozoa, and that not one was sufficiently independent to set about

studying the phenomenon for himself? What is this mental form of

inertia? and why does it produce itself in man? All these disciples,

heedless of the problem presented to their minds by the sexual form of

the plasmodium, left it alone, although it had not yet been solved,

and certainly had no intuition of the fame, the progress in science,

and the benefit to humanity which would have been the outcome, had the

problem constituted an obstacle which had arrested their attention,

saying: "Solve me."

They passed on indifferently, commending Laveran's "effort of genius,"

repeating with him: They are degenerate forms. A futile effort, which

only increased a crowd of persons who had resigned their own

individuality all unconsciously.

Another biological acquisition was the assurance that the circulatory

system of the blood is a closed system of vessels, and that the

enclosing epithelium is not permeable by non-incisive solid bodies

such as vegetable microbes, and still less by rounded protozoa, which

are much larger than microbes and soft in substance. This well-known

and clearly demonstrated fact ought to have suggested a problem to the

minds of students: How do the protozoa of malaria enter the

circulatory current of the blood? But ever since the days of

Hippocrates, Pliny, Celsius and Galen it had been held that this fever

was caused by the "poisonous atmosphere" of marsh lands, the bad air

of the morning and the evening, so much so that even a few years

before the discovery of the real cause of malaria, eucalyptus trees

were planted in the belief that they would filter and disinfect the

air. How was it that no one asked himself how it was possible that the

plasmodia could enter the _current of the blood_ from the _air_? What

was the species of torpor which took possession of the intelligence of

persons who had specialized in intellectual work? Here was a colossal

_sum_ of intelligence, without any individuality.

Until Ross discovered that birds are inoculated with malaria by a

particular kind of mosquito.

And then, behold! we have at last the fundamental argument from which

the knowledge of the truth sprang forth: "If birds are inoculated with

malaria by mosquitoes, then the same thing must happen to man."

A simple argument, which sped like an arrow to the final discovery.

Nothing seemed more _incredible_ than the fact that in the malarial

regions good air and fertile soil were to be found, that it was

possible to breathe that air morning and evening and remain in perfect

health, so long as one was not bitten by mosquitoes, and that the

innumerable peasants who were wasted by malarial anemia would be saved

and restored if they protected themselves by mosquito-netting. But

after the first stupefaction, when men were convinced of the facts,

there was an outcry from all the intelligent: How was it possible that

we did not find it out before? Was not the cycle of the protozoa a

well-known fact? Did not every one declare that the system of

circulation was closed and impervious to micro-organisms? Was it not

natural to think that only a blood-sucking insect could innoculate it?

How many students _felt_ that glory had passed close to them, and were

amazed and saddened by the knowledge, like the disciples of Emmäus,

who said to each other when the Master disappeared before they

recognized Him: "Did not our hearts burn within us when He spoke and

expounded the Scriptures to us?"

Many must have thought: We worked so laboriously only to encumber our

minds, and yet but one thing was needful: we should have been humble

and simple, but independent. Instead, we filled our souls with

darkness, and the ray that would have made us see, could not penetrate

to us.

Let us take some grosser errors. As far back as the days of the Greek

civilization it was known empirically that "stones can fall from the

sky." Falls of aërolites are recorded in the most ancient Chinese

chronicles. In the Middle Ages and in modern times intimations of the

fall of aërolites have increased in frequency. Remarkable facts are

indeed recorded in history in connection with similar phenomena: the

meteorite which fell in 1492 served the Emperor Maximilian I of

Germany as a pretext to excite Christendom to a war against the Turks.

Nevertheless, the phenomenon was not admitted by men of science until

the eighteenth century. One of the largest meteorites on record was

that which fell near Agram in 1751; it weighed about forty

kilogrammes, and was deposited and catalogued in the court

mineralogical museum at Vienna. This is what Stütz, a German savant,

had to say on the subject in 1790: "Those ignorant of natural history

may believe that iron has fallen from the sky, and even educated men

in Germany may have believed this in 1751, taking into account the

universal ignorance then prevalent as to natural history and physics;

but in our times it would be unpardonable to admit even the

plausibility of such fables."

In the same year 1790, an aërolite weighing ten kilogrammes fell in

Gascony. It was observed by a large number of persons, and an official

report, signed by three hundred witnesses, was sent to the Academy of

Paris. The reply was that "it had been very amusing to receive a legal

document dealing with such an absurdity." [7]

[Footnote 7: But a great physicist, unable to share _amusement_,

wrote: "It is sad to see a municipality giving credence to the babble

of the vulgar in a protocol, and to see authentic testimonies to an

occurrence which is obviously impossible."]

When, a few years later, Chladni of Wittenberg, the founder of

scientific acoustics, began to admit the phenomenon and to believe in

the existence of aërolites, he was stigmatized as "a man who was

ignorant of every law and who did not consider the damage he was doing

in the moral world"; and one savant declared that "if he had himself

seen iron fall from the sky at his own feet, he would not have

believed it."

This was incredulity greater than that of St Thomas, who said: "Unless

I can touch I will not believe." Here were pieces of iron weighing ten

and forty kilogrammes, which could be touched, but the savant said:

"Even if I touch them, I will not believe."

It is, therefore, not enough _to see in order to believe_; we must

_believe in order to see_. It is faith which leads to sight, not sight

which produces faith. When the blind man in the gospel uttered the

anxious cry: "Make me to see," he asked for "faith," because he knew

that it is possible to have eyes and not to see.

The fact of being insensible to evidence is little considered in

psychology, much less is it taken into account in pedagogic laws. And

yet many similar facts, though of an inferior psychological order, are

notorious, as, for instance, that stimuli will appeal in vain to the

senses, if the internal cooperation of attention be lacking. A

thousand experiences of this kind enter in to make up the sum of

common knowledge. It is not enough that an object should be before our

eyes to make us see it; it is necessary that we should fix our

attention upon it; an internal process, preparing us to receive the

impression of the stimulus, is essential.

In a loftier and purely spiritual sphere something of the same kind

takes place: an idea cannot enter triumphantly into the consciousness,

if it is not accompanied by a preparation of faith. Lacking this, it

may knock violently and brutally, with clamorous insistence, without

being able to penetrate. It is necessary that the field of

consciousness should be not only free, but "expectant." He who is

bewildered by a chaos of ideas cannot accept a truth which arrives

unexpectedly in the unprepared field.

This fact is not only analogous to other psychical facts of less

importance, such as that of sensory perception in relation to

attention; it is also analogous to the spiritual facts which are so

well known in the field of religion. In vain will a fact, however

remarkable, be explained or even _demonstrated_ where there is no

_faith_; it is not evidence but faith which opens the mind to truth.

The very senses are useless as a medium if the internal activity does

not open the doors to receive it. When the most striking miracles of

Christ are related in the gospel, the narrative always concludes with:

"And _many_ of those who saw, believed." The parable of the invitation

to the feast, to which those who were absorbed in their own affairs

could not respond, seems to indicate a fact similar to this

intellectual fact, that the "preoccupations" of complicated

pre-existing ideas prevent the new and obvious truth that presents

itself, from entering in. It is for this reason that we need the

Precursor to make ready for the Messiah. And for this reason the

Messiah, and also new ideas, are readily received by the "simple," by

those who are not "laden with heavy preoccupations," but have

preserved the natural characteristics of the spirit: to be pure and

always "expectant."

When in 1628 Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood,

physiology was almost unknown, and medicine was in the full tide of

empiricism. It is well known that the Faculty of Medicine of Paris

refused to believe in circulation, in _spite of_ experiments, and that

it persecuted and calumniated Harvey. "That which pleases me in my

son," said Diafoirus, "and in which he follows my example, is, that he

remains faithful to the opinions of our ancient teachers, and that he

has always refused either to _understand_ or to _listen_ to the

arguments and experiments of the pretended discoveries of our century,

especially as regards the circulation of the blood."

* * * * *

The history of the discovery of germinative foliations in the

embryonic development of vertebrates forms one of the most impressive

of human documents. In 1700 the theory of _pre-formation_ was

vigorously upheld amongst the many ideas relating to generation: that

is to say, it was believed that the germs contained little organisms

completely formed which would eventually unfold and increase the parts

of infinitesimal dimensions which were packed one within the other.

This theory applied to every living creature, animal, vegetable, and

human. It had led, by its own logical development, to the more

far-reaching theory of "mutual inclusion"--that is, the doctrine that,

as all living organisms are _pre-formed_, they must of necessity all

have existed from the Creation, the one included, or wrapped up, in

the other. All humanity must have lain in the ovaries of Eve. When in

1690 Leuwenhoek discovered spermatozoa by the aid of the microscope,

the idea was evolved that each male cell contained a complete

microscopic man, the _homunculus_; and then it was announced that not

Eve, but Adam had contained all humanity within himself. Hence the

two contradictory theories which in the eighteenth century kept their

adherents sharply divided, the theories of the ovulists and those of

the animalculists, and the dispute seemed to offer little hope of a

possible decision. The names of famous scientists and philosophers

were associated with these dissensions, those, for instance, of

Spallanzani and of Liebnitz, who applied the principles of generation

even to the soul. "Thus I should think," said Liebnitz, "that the

souls which will one day become human souls, were present in the germ;

that they have always existed as organized bodies in their progenitors

from Adam onwards--that is, from the beginning of things." [8]

Haller, the ovulist, who had great authority as a physiologist, in a

famous work, _Elementa physiologiae_, upheld the principle vigorously:

"_Nulla est epigenesis. Nulla in corpore animale pars ante aliam facta

est et omnes simul creatae existunt_" (nothing is created anew, no

part of the human body is made before any other part, all are created

at the same time). Making a calculation based on Biblical cosmogony of

the number of human beings who were packed in the ovaries of Eve, he

reckons them at two hundred thousand millions. Such was the state of

thought when in 1759 K. F. Wolff published some of his studies in the

work _Theoria generationis_, where he maintained, on the strength of

experiments and microscopic observations made on the embryos of fowls,

that new organisms are not pre-formed, but that they create themselves

entirely, starting from nothing--that is, from a microscopic cell,

simple as are all primitive cells. He described the simple process by

which the real evolution of individuals is brought about: from a

single cell, by division, two, and then four and then eight, are

formed, and so on. And the cells thus germinated divide themselves

into two or three tiny folds of "primitive folioles" from which all

the organs are evolved, beginning with the alimentary canal. "This

assertion," says Wolff "is not a fanciful theory; it is a description

of facts collected by means of the most trustworthy observations."

[Footnote 8: From Haeckel's _Anthropogenie_.]

All the scientists of his day knew and made use of the microscope; all

might have taken an egg, that is, the embryo of a fowl, as a subject

for observation; they were not indifferent to the problem of

individual genesis, but in their case it had merely excited the most

complex efforts of the imagination, and had divided them into

factions, as adversaries in a battle of thought. Could any one of them

attempt to experiment and observe save at the risk of destroying

himself together with his adversaries, as Samson destroyed himself

with the Philistines? The possibility that there might be some truth

in what had been seen and described, and that it might recur, should

indeed have induced some one to venture upon a road which, if it

proved to be the right one, would have been a glorious path to a

future of discoveries and distinctions. But no. A dense fog obscured

all minds, and the dazzling truth could not pierce it; thus all

progress in embryology was precluded.

Fifty years had passed, and Wolff, poor and persecuted, had died at

Petrograd, an exile from his native land, when Pander and Ernest von

Baer grappled anew with the theory of "blastodermic foliation." Then

the scientific world _perceived_ the truth and accepted the evidence,

inaugurating those studies in embryology which shed so much luster on

the nineteenth century.

Why was it necessary that fifty years should elapse before men could

see what was evident? What had happened in these fifty years? The work

of Wolff, dead and forgotten, can have had no influence whatever. The

fact was merely that men saw _subsequently_ what it had been

previously _impossible for them to see_. A kind of internal maturity

must have come about in them, by virtue of which their spiritual eyes

were opened, and they saw. When _those eyes were closed_, evidence was

useless. Fifty years earlier, a direct attack would have spent itself

on insuperable obstacles; but with the lapse of time the subject

presented itself, and was simply and universally accepted, not only

without a struggle, but without any excitement.

This fact might be arguable in relation to the internal maturation of

the masses; but it is beyond question in its relation to the

individual. When an obvious truth cannot be seen, we must retire, and

leave the individual to mature. A struggle "to bring about perception

of evidence" would be bitter and exhausting. But when maturity comes,

we shall find the seer filled with enthusiasm, and bearing fruit like

the vines of the Land of Promise.