Page:Home Education by Isaac Taylor (1838).djvu/308

 CHAPTER.

THE ANALOGICAL FEELING AND HABIT, PREPARATORY TO THE EXPANSION OF THE ABSTRACTIVE AND REASONING FACULTIES.

WE come now to what must be called, not indeed a resting place; but rather a turning point, in the course of Intellectual Culture. It is essential to the successful application of the system I am endeavouring to unfold, that this crisis of the principle which follows nature, in developing the faculties, should be clearly understood.

Every one is conscious of two perfectly distinct states of the mind, occupying it at different times: (we are now speaking of what is intellectual merely) in one of these states an object, or an idea, is presented to the mind, which, whether it wills or not, and always without any sensible effort, admits the idea, and discerns its relationship to any others with which it may stand connected. This may be called INTUITION; and with intuition nature has intimately connected various simple emotions of pleasure, or of curiosity, the effect of which is to stimulate the mind, during its growing time especially, and to lead it on- ward always in the path of knowledge. In the way of simple intuition, skilfully superintended, the mind may not only be replenished with ideas, in vast variety, but may be put into a condition the most favourable possible for advancing on the more arduous part of its course.

But beside this intuition, and on the ground of it, the mind gradually acquires the power of fixing itself upon a