I. Sensuous Ideas perceive "things."
II. Abstract Ideas perceive "forces."
III. Concrete Idea perceives "persistent force."
In this progress from one phase of reflection to another, the intellect
advances to a deeper and truer reality[14] at each step.
Sense-ideas which look upon the world as a world of independent objects,
do not cognize the world truly. The next step, abstract ideas, cognizes
the world as a process of forces, and "things" are seen to be mere
temporary equilibria in the interaction of forces; "each thing is a
bundle of forces." But the concrete idea of the Persistent force sees a
deeper and more permanent reality underlying particular forces. It is
one ultimate force. In it all multiplicity of existences has vanished,
and yet it is the source of all particular existence.
This view of the world, on the stand-point of concrete idea, is
pantheistic. It makes out a one supreme principle which originates and
destroys all particular existences, all finite beings. It is the
stand-point of Orientalism, or of the Asiatic thought. Buddhism and
Brahminism have reached it, and not transcended it. It is a necessary
stage of reflection in the mind, just as much as the stand-point of the
first stage of reflection, which regards the world as composed of a
multiplicity of independent things; or the stand-point of the second
stage of reflection, which looks upon the world as a collection of
relative existences in a state of process.
The final stand-point of the intellect is that in which it perceives the
highest principle to be a self-determining or self-active Being,
self-conscious, and creator of a world which manifests him. A logical
investigation of the principle of "persistent force" would prove that
this principle of Personal Being is presupposed as its true form. Since
the "persistent force" is the sole and ultimate reality, it originates
all other reality only by self-activity, and thus is self-determined.
Self-determination implies self-consciousness as the true form of its
existence.
These four forms of thinking, which we have arbitrarily called
_sensuous_, _abstract_, _concrete_, and _absolute_ ideas, correspond to
four views of the world: (1) as a congeries of independent things; (2)
as a play of forces; (3) as the evanescent appearance of a negative
essential power; (4) as the creation of a Personal Creator, who makes it
the theatre of the development of conscious beings in his image. Each
step upward in ideas arrives at a more adequate idea of the true
reality. _Force_ is more real than _thing_; persistent force than
particular forces; Absolute Person is more real than the force or forces
which he creates.
This final form of thinking is the only form which is consistent with
the theory of education. Each individual should ascend by education into
participation--_conscious_ participation--in the life of the species.
Institutions--family, society, state, church--all are instrumentalities
by which the humble individual may avail himself of the help of the
race, and live over in himself its life. The highest stage of thinking
is the stage of insight. It sees the world as explained by the principle
of Absolute Person. It finds the world of institutions a world in
harmony with such a principle.
[1] The parallelism between these two sciences, Medicine
and Education, is an obvious point, which every student
will do well to consider.
[2] This will again remind the student of the theories of
treatment in medicine in diseases which, in the
seventeenth century, were treated only by bleeding and
emetics, are now treated by nourishing food, and no
medicines, etc.
[3] The teacher will do well to consider the probable
result of the constant association with mental inferiors
entailed by his work, and also to consider what
counter-irritant is to be applied to balance, in his
character, this unavoidable tendency.
[4] The age at which the child should be subject to the
training of school life, or Education, properly so-called,
must vary with different races, nations, and different
children.
[5] The best educator is he who makes his pupils
independent of himself. This implies on the teacher's part
an ability to lose himself in his work, and a desire for
the real growth of the pupil, independent of any personal
fame of his own--a disinterestedness which places
education on a level with the noblest occupations of man.
[6] See analysis.
[7] Asiatic systems of Education have this basis (see §
178 of the original).
[8] The definition of freedom here implied is this: Mind
is free when it knows itself and wills its own laws.
[9] Perhaps, however slow the growth, there is real
progress in liberating the imprisoned soul (?)
[10] "When me they fly, I am the wings."--_Emerson._
[11] The story of Peter Schlemihl, by Chamisso, may be
read in the English translation published in "Hedge's
German Prose Writers."
[12] That is, punishment is retributive and not
corrective. Justice requires that each man shall have the
fruits of his own deeds; in this it assumes that each and
every man is free and self-determined. It proposes to
treat each man as free, and as the rightful owner of his
deed and its consequences. If he does a deed which is
destructive to human rights, it shall destroy his rights
and deprive him of property, personal freedom, or even of
life. But corrective punishment assumes immaturity of
development and consequent lack of freedom. It belongs to
the period of nurture, and not to the period of maturity.
The tendency in our schools is, however, to displace the
forms of mere corrective punishment (corporal
chastisement), and to substitute for them forms founded on
retribution--_e.g._, deprivation of privileges. See secs.
42 and 43.
[13] Faust; Part I., Scene I. "How all weaves itself into
the Whole! Each works and lives in the other! How the
heavenly influences ascend and descend, and reach each
other the golden buckets!"
[14] Hume, in his famous sketch of the Human
Understanding, makes all the perceptions of the human mind
resolve themselves into two distinct kinds: _impressions_
and _ideas_. "The difference between them consists in the
degrees of force and liveliness with which they strike
upon the mind, and make their way into our thought and
consciousness. Those perceptions which enter with the most
force and violence we may name _impressions_, and under
this name include all our sensations, passions, and
emotions, as they make their first appearance in the soul.
By _ideas_, I mean the faint images of these in thinking
and reasoning." "The identity which we ascribe to the mind
of man is only a fictitious one."
From this we see that his stand-point is that of "sensuous
ideas," the first stage of reflection. The second or third
stage of reflection, if consistent, would not admit the
reality to be the object of sense-impressions, and the
abstract ideas to be only "faint images." One who holds,
like Herbert Spencer, that persistent force is the
ultimate reality--"the sole truth, which transcends
experience by underlying it"--ought to hold that the
generalization which reaches the idea of unity of force is
the truest and most adequate of thoughts. And yet Herbert
Spencer holds substantially the doctrine of Hume, in the
words: "We must predicate nothing of objects too great or
too multitudinous to be mentally represented, or we must
make our predications by means of extremely inadequate
representations of such objects--mere symbols of them."
(Page 27 of "First Principles.")