Page:The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius (1896).pdf/329

 As the proverb says: “Where small means suffice, great should not be used.”

12. Let us choose the sun for imitation, since it affords a striking example of the operations of nature. Its functions are laborious and almost unlimited (namely, to send forth its rays over the whole world and to supply all the elements, minerals, plants, and animals, of which countless species exist, with light, warmth, life, and strength), but it proves equal to them all, and every year fulfils the circle of its duties in the most admirable manner.

13. We will therefore examine its various principles of action, with reference to the above-mentioned desiderata of school management.

(i) The sun does not occupy itself with any single object, animal, or tree; but lights and warms the whole earth at once.

(ii) It gives light to all things with the same rays; covers all things with moisture by the same processes of evaporation and condensation; it causes the same wind to blow on all things; it puts all things in motion by the same warmth and cold.

(iii) It causes spring, summer, autumn, and winter to make their appearance in all lands at the same time. At the same time, through its agency, the trees grow green, blossom, and bear fruit (though naturally some do so earlier than others).

(iv) It always preserves the same order; one day resembles another, one year resembles the next. It always operates on one object by the same method.

(v) It produces everything from its elementary form, and from no other source.

(vi) It produces in combination everything that ought to be combined; wood with its bark and its core, a flower with its leaves, a fruit with its skin and its stalk.

(vii) It causes everything to develope through definite stages, so that one stage prepares the way for the next, and each stage follows naturally from the previous one.

(viii) Finally, it brings into existence nothing that is