than that it is "intellect constructive." "Perhaps," he says, "if we should meet Shakespeare, we should not be conscious of any great inferiority, but of a great equality, only that he possessed a great skill of using-of classifying-his facts, which he lacked." FEELING. It is a fact in psychology, that along with every intellectual act there is a state of feeling. This feeling stimulates the mind. It is the gush of the mountain stream setting the machinery in motion. The highest form which this feeling can take, is sympathy with the Creator, an earnest desire to look on while he is working in the world around us, to understand his plans, and to enter, as it were, into his very thoughts. It is that divine enthusiasm for everything true and beautiful. It is that devoted love of knowledge for its own sake. It is, in other words, that reverent, childlike wonder which Sir William Hamilton called "the mother of knowledge." Full of this childlike wonder, we sit by and watch while our Great Father works. We see him acting in the forces of matter, in the growth of plants, in the instincts of the lower animals, and in the sympathies and noble aspirations of men. Sometimes we can only look on and admire, and then we are simply lovers of nature : "Contented if we may enjoy Sometimes, urged on by a desire to master what we see, we try to collect the facts into bundles, or, in other words, to classify them; and then we become philosophers, or historians, or biographers. Sometimes, too, under the influence of the lof. tiest ambition, we strive to imitate the Great Worker. We cannot make new materials; but selecting our materials from His materials, and carefully following His method, we form new combinations, and produce representations of persons, actions, and scenes. We become, in a certain sense, creators : artists, or epic poets, or novelists, or dramatists. Here, now, is a most potent feeling which ought to be cultivated by every one. But an important question arises: How can a man who is without this feeling acquire it? The task is easy. If you have no wonder, your mind must be blinded with conceit. Throw away your conceit, and be humble and childlike. Go forth into the world with open senses and open heart. Place yourself face to face with the works of God. If any part appears more congenial to you than the others, that is the part which you must choose. You will thus be able to throw your whole soul into it; and throwing your whole soul into it, you will enter into its secret recesses, and will not fail to see in it much that is wonderful. That great philosophers and poets are influenced by this feeling of wonder, cannot be doubted. Here, as elsewhere, extremes meet. The greatest are the lowliest; and the wisest are those that are readiest to confess that they know almost nothing. Newton's comparison of himself to a child on the sea-shore is well known; and Sir William Hamilton held hat our highest knowledge was the knowledge of our own ignorance. Professor Ferrier, too, declared that "genius is nothing else than the power of seeing wonders in common things.' How this feeling of wonder pervades and stimulates the life of a philosopher is beautifully described by Longfellow in his poem on the "Fiftieth Birthday of Agassiz ": "It was fifty years ago, In the pleasant month of May, "And Nature, the old nurse, took Thy father has written for thee.' "Come, wander with me,' she said, In the manuscripts of God.' "And he wandered away and away "And whenever the way seemed long, She would sing a more wonderful song, "So she keeps him still a child, And will not let him go, Though at times his heart beats wild For the beautiful Pays de Vaud." We have thus described certain cases in which well-ascer tained facts regarding the human mind may be made useful. Other instances might easily be given. But we have done enough to show that a knowledge of mental philosophy is necessary to the successful cultivation of our powers. own mental |