Part 18 (1/2)

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 partic.i.p.ation--_conscious_ partic.i.p.ation--in the life of the species.

Inst.i.tutions--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 inst.i.tutions 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 nouris.h.i.+ng food, and no medicines, etc.

[3] The teacher will do well to consider the probable result of the constant a.s.sociation 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 n.o.blest occupations of man.

[6] See a.n.a.lysis.

[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.