Page:Home Education by Isaac Taylor (1838).djvu/207

 IN THE ABSENCE OF THOSE OBJECTS; and the third, embracing the means to be used for establishing a ready and perfect correspondence between LANGUAGE and the conceptive faculty. Nevertheless a somewhat less formal method may best insure brevity, in treating the first and second of the above-named subjects; although the last must be separately considered.

It might seem very natural to take it for granted that the truth and vivacity of the ideas treasured in the mind, if not the command which it afterwards exercises over them, must be proportioned to the exactness and activity of the faculty of observation; or to the degree of attention that is given to whatever passes before the eye. But I do not think it is so in fact; for one meets with very nice observers, and with persons who, when questioned on particular points, are able to supply the most precise information; but whose conceptive faculty is nevertheless poor, cold, and feeble. On the other hand some, nor are the instances rare, al-though they observe vaguely, yet not only live in a world of rich conceptions, but can paint to the life, I mean in words, whatever they have seen, or have heard described.

The habit and power of nice observation is doubtless an important object of culture, and I shall have occasion to speak of it hereafter; but the vigour and vivacity of the conceptive faculty appears to be in great measure irrespective of it, and to depend more directly upon the strength of the emotions of which the mind is naturally susceptible. This seems in fact to be the law of the conceptive powerThat the vividness of its impressions are directly as the force or intensity of the emotions which may be at work at the time when such impressions are received. The recollection of this principle of the human mind goes far in regulating the practical measures of a systematic home education. Many familiar facts establish what we now affirm, and show that it is feeling, in its various degrees and kinds,