and sciences are powers, but every power exists only for the sake of action; the end of philosophy, therefore, is not knowledge, but the energy conversant about knowledge." Descending to the schoolmen: "The intellect," says Aquinas, 66 commences in operation, and in operation it ends;"2 and Scotus even declares that a man's knowledge is measured by the amount of his mental activity -"tantum scit homo, quantum operatur." 3 The profoundest thinkers of modern times have emphatically testified to the same great principle. "If," says Mallebranche, "I held truth captive in my hand, I should open my hand and let it fly, in order that I might again pursue and capture it." "Did the Almighty," says Lessing, "holding in his right hand Truth, and in his left Search after Truth, deign to tender me the one I might prefer,—in all humility, but without hesitation, I should request Search after Truth." "Truth," says Von Müller, "is the property of God, the pursuit of truth is what belongs to man; "6 and Jean Paul Richter: "It is not the goal, but the course, which makes us happy." But there, would be no end of similar quotations." But if speculative truth itself be only valuable as a mean of intellectual activity, those studies which determine the faculties to a more vigorous exertion, will, in every liberal sense, be better entitled, absolutely, to the name of useful, than those which, with a greater complement of more certain facts, awaken them to a less intense, and consequently to a less improving exercise. On this ground I would rest one of the preeminent utilities of mental philosophy. That it comprehends all the sublimest objects of our theoretical and moral interest;-that every (natural) conclusion concerning God, the soul, the present worth and the future destiny of man, is exclusively deduced from the philosophy

Philosophy best entitled to the appellation useful.

plicat præmissas ad conclusionem. Sic igitur patet quod actualitas scientiæ est ex applicatione causæ ad effectum" Compare Quæst. ii., "An acquisitio scientiæ sit nobis per doctrinam " for his view of the end and means of education. - ED.

4 ["Malebranche disait avec une ingénieuse exagération, 'Si je tenais la vérité captive dans ma main, j'ouvrirais la main afin de poursuivre encore la vérité.'"-Mazure, Cours de Philosophie, tom. i. p. 20.]

5 Eine Duplik, § 1; Schriften, edit. Lachmann, x. p. 49. - ED.

6 ["Die Wahrheit ist in Gott, uns bleibt das Forschen."]

7 Compare Discussions, p. 40.

of mind, will be at once admitted. But I do not at present found the importance on the paramount dignity of the pursuit. It is as the best gymnastic of the mind, as a mean, principally, and almost exclusively, conducive to the highest education of our noblest powers, that I would vindicate to these speculations the necessity which has too frequently been denied them. By no other intellectual application is the mind thus reflected on itself, and its faculties aroused to such independent, vigorous, unwonted, and continued energy; - by none, therefore, are its best capacities so variously and intensely evolved. "By turning," says Burke, "the soul inward on itself, its forces are concentred, and are fitted for greater and stronger flights of science; and in this pursuit, whether we take or whether we lose our game, the chase is certainly of service.” 1

Application of the foregoing principles to the conduct of a class of philosophy.

From

These principles being established, I have only now to offer a few observations in regard to their application, that is, in regard to the mode in which I conceive that this class ought to be conducted. what has already been said, my views on this subject may be easily anticipated. Holding that the paramount end of liberal study is the development of the student's mind, and that knowledge is principally useful as a mean of determining the faculties to that exercise, through which this development is accomplished, it follows, that I must regard the main duty of a Professor to consist not simply in communicating information, but in doing this in such a manner, and with such an accompaniment of subsidiary means, that the information he conveys may be the occasion of awakening his pupils to a vigorous and varied exertion of their faculties. Self-activity is the indispensable condition of improvement; and education is only education, that is, accomplishes its purpose, only by affording objects and supplying incitements to this spontaneous exertion. Strictly speaking, every one must educate himself.

Universities; their main end.

But as the end of education is thus something more than the mere communication of knowledge, the communication of knowledge ought not to be all that academical education should attempt. Before printing was invented, Universities were of primary importance as organs of publication, and as centres of literary confluence: but since that invention, their utility as media of communication is superseded; consequently, to justify the continuance of

1 On the Sublime and Beautiful, p. 8.-ED.

their existence and privileges, they must accomplish something that cannot be accomplished by books. But it is a remarkable circumstance that, before the invention of printing, universities viewed the activity of the pupil as the great mean of cultivation, and the communication of knowledge as only of subordinate importance; whereas, since that invention, universities, in general, have gradually allowed to fall into disuse the powerful means which they possess of rousing the pupil to exertion, and have been too often content to act as mere oral instruments of information, forgetful, it would almost seem, that Fust and Coster ever lived. It is acknowledged, indeed, that this is neither the principal nor the proper purpose of a university. Every writer on academical education from every corner of Europe proclaims the abuse, and, in this and other universities, much has been done by individual ef fort to correct it.1

The true end of liberal education.

The conditions of instruction in intellectual philosophy.

But though the common duty of all academical instructors be the cultivation of the student, through the awakened exercise of his faculties, this is more especially incumbent on those to whom is intrusted the department of liberal education; for, in this department, the pupil is trained, not to any mere professional knowledge, but to the command and employment of his faculties in general. But, moreover, the same obligation is specially imposed upon a professor of intellectual philosophy, by the peculiar nature of his subject, and the conditions under which alone it can be taught. The phænomena of the external world are so palpable and so easily described, that the experience of one observer suffices to render the facts he has witnessed intelligible and probable to all. The phænomena of the internal world, on the contrary, are not capable of being thus described: all that the prior observer can do, is to enable others to repeat his experience. In the science of mind, we can neither understand nor be convinced of anything at second hand. Here testimony can impose no belief; and instruction is only instruction as it enables us to teach ourselves. fact of consciousness, however accurately observed, however clearly described, and however great may be our confidence in the observer, is for us as zero, until we have observed and recognized it ourselves. Till that be done, we cannot realize its possibility, far less admit its truth. Thus it is that, in the philosophy of mind, instruction can do little more than point out the position in which the pupil ought to place himself, in order to verify, by his own

1 Compare Discussions, p. 772.- ED.

experience, the facts which his instructor proposes to him as true. The instructor, therefore, proclaims, οὐ φιλοσοφία, ἀλλὰ φιλοσοφεῖν ; he does not profess to teach philosophy, but to philosophize.

Use and importance of examinations in a class of Philosophy.

It is this condition imposed upon the student of doing everything himself, that renders the study of the mental sciences the most improving exercise of intellect. But everything depends upon the condition being fulfilled; and, therefore, the primary duty of a teacher of philosophy is to take care that the student does actually perform for himself the necessary process. In the first place, he must discover, by examination, whether his instructions have been effective, whether they have enabled the pupil to go through the intellectual operation; and, if not, it behooves him to supply what is wanting,- to clear up what has been misunderstood. In this view, examinations are of high importance to a professor; for without such a medium between the teacher and the taught, he can never adequately accommodate the character of his instruction to the capacity of his pupils.

But, in the scond place, besides placing his pupil in a condition to perform the necessary process, the instructor ought to do what in him lies to determine the pupil's will to the performance. But how is this to be effected? Only by rendering the effort more pleasurable than its omission.

The intellectual instructor must seek to influence the will of his pupils.

But

every effort is at first difficult, consequently irksome. The ultimate benefit it promises is dim and remote, while the pupil is often of an age at which present pleasure is more persuasive than future good. The pain of the exertion must, therefore, be overcome by associating with it a still higher pleasure. This can only be effected by enlisting some passion in the cause of improvement. We must awaken emulation, and allow its gratification only through a course of vigorous exertion. Some rigorists, I am aware, would proscribe, on moral and religious grounds, the employment of the passions in education; but such a view is at once false and dan

The place of the passions in education.

gerous. The affections are the work of God; they are not radically evil; they are given us for useful purposes, and are, therefore, not superfluous. It is their abuse that is alone reprehensible. In truth, however, there is no alternative. In youth passion is preponderant. There is then a redundant amount of energy which must be expended; and this, if it find not an outlet through one affection, is sure to find it through another. The aim of education is thus to employ for good those impulses which would otherwise be

turned to evil. The passions are never neutral; they are either the best allies, or the worst opponents, of improvement. "Man's nature," says Bacon, "runs either to herbs or weeds; therefore let him seasonably water the one, and destroy the other." Without the stimulus of emulation, what can education accomplish? The love of abstract knowledge, and the habit of application, are still unformed, and if emulation intervene not, the course by which these are acquired is, from a strenuous and cheerful energy, reduced to an inanimate and dreary effort; and this, too, at an age when pleasure is all-powerful, and impulse predominant over reason. The result is manifest.

These views have determined my plan of practical instruction. Regarding the communication of knowledge as a high, but not the highest, aim of academical instruction, I shall not content myself with the delivery of lectures. By all means in my power I shall endeavor to rouse you, gentlemen, to the free and vigorous exercise of your faculties; and shall deem my task accomplished, not by teaching Logic and Philosophy, but by teaching to reason and philosophize.2

1 Essay xxxviii.-"Of Nature in Men." -Works, ed. Montagu, volume i. p. 133.ED.

2 For Fragment containing the Author's views on the subject of Academical Honors, see Appendix I.-ED.