Page:Home Education by Isaac Taylor (1838).djvu/283

 chiefly so; the sense of Resemblance is also a passive perception, yet it leads on to the discernment of analogy, which is more an active sense, and tends to induce a still higher activity.

Chemistry, and its related sciencesmeteorology, mineralogy, electricity, galvanism, magnetism, are all of them rich in instances that may be made subservient to our immediate purpose: and let it be considered how much the future progress of the learner, in rendering himself master of the purely philosophic principles of these sciences must be facilitated, when he has already gone over the ground, twice or thrice, and in that very order which adapts itself to the gradual expansion of the faculties.That is to say, first, in search of visible and striking facts merely, and such as serve to stock the mind with bright images: secondly, in search of those resemblances and analogies which are intuitively recognized, and the recognition of which is attended with a lively emotion of pleasure; and lastly, in the arduous pursuit of abstract generalizations, and recondite laws. How often is this natural method reversed; the most difficult things, and those the least attractive, being first presented; and this merely because logical order demands that they should be placed on the first pages of an elementary book; or perhaps because it is much easier to drive the machine of education on this road, than on the other.

In quest of the instances he wants, the teacher will some-times advance from the most familiar facts, such as the blowing a soap bubble, to the principles it illustrates; and sometimes he will descend from the statement of principles, to the most familiar illustrations; as if, after having talked, with due gravity, of solution, decoction, evaporation, congelation, latent heat, and the radiation of heat; he holds up the cup of tea in his hand, as a combined exemplification of each of these processes.