Intelligence trained. The second period from seven to fourteen. Training Esthetic. an indication speedily confirmed by the whole of the child's relations with others. The distinction between the mother and Humanity does not interfere with the unity of the child's worship, for the mother even at this early age becomes the personification of Humanity, in which at that time the Country is lost. Although the education of the infant is almost exclusively moral, the intelligence is awakened by the observation of beings, guided by a purely Fetichist synthesis, all interference with which must be carefully avoided. Under the influence of this synthesis, as emotional as it is intellectual, the first beginnings of the true logic are traceable in the combination of feelings with images, soon aided by signs. Thus is attained in its simplest form cerebral unity, wherein activity, with no outward object to secure, subserves the intelligence to express emotions. This form persists during the second period of childhood, but with a tendency then to the more complex unity required in real life, because the child is now in contact with others outside the Family, the only collective being originally within its cognizance. This enlarged contact is a consequence in especial of its esthetic studies, then entered upon on the basis of the images derived from the first period. Although these studies in the main should be left to the child itself, the mother's care prepares the way for the normal discipline, by instituting the practice of exercises in poetry, in music, and in drawing, even prior to reading and writing. When, by the acquisition of these last, full communication is established, the child enters at once on the knowledge of the Great Being, through admiration of its master works, in spite of the diversity of languages, ancient or modern. From familiarity with this difference, there dawns the idea of Country in the widest sense, hitherto undistinguished from Humanity, but henceforward characterised by language, even when the difference has become purely a matter of history, in consequence of the universal adoption finally of the Positive The Univer- language. Indeed, in the normal state, the study by all of the sal Lan guage. seven languages which presided over the three grand phases of the Western transition must never be suppressed. Apart from the imperishable monuments which are their consecration, their spontaneous concurrence will always remain indispensable to the complete creation of the language of mankind, a direct outgrowth of the fusion of the five modern languages, under the presidency of the Italian as the most musical. During the second period, the moral education given by the first is carried on, by virtue of the influence on the affections exerted by the esthetic culture. From the relation between the two we must draw the best criterion of the intellectual advance, instinctively directed towards the perfecting of the personal cultus, the formation of which comes now to be distinctly traceable. A prayer, a hymn, a drawing, in honour of the mother, will evidence, by their gradual improvement, the gradual increase of power to body forth real feelings, not without aid borrowed from the artistic treasures of Humanity. Art during this period holds avowedly the first place, but it Intellectual. forms, as it were, a preparation for science, by encouraging the observation of all events, whereas previously beings and beings only had been its object. For art, whether fine art or industrial, has to do, as science has, solely with phenomena; it differs from science in always referring them to bodies, instead of treating them as abstractions. Towards the end of the first period of childhood, the child spontaneously forms subjective milieus, and by their aid combines these two modes of contemplation, by forming images distinct from beings, at least in the case of the inorganic world, the primary domain of scientific investigation. theistic the second period need the first not survive three centu ries of the normal state. In the General View,' I attributed to the second period of The Polychildhood a polytheistic synthesis, as a natural product of character of abstract observation and in perfect harmony with the esthetic culture. I would now limit this modification to the three first centuries of the normal state, for by that time the historical filiation of that state should be a matter of universal consciousness. When, as a result of the fusion of Fetichism in Positivism, Theologism in all its forms shall be eliminated, the philosophy of the earliest period of childhood will persist through the second, to be incorporated, in the third, with human reason in its definitive state. The cultivation of the artistic faculties will be found compatible with this improvement of the individual initiation, which by it is dispensed from servilely reproducing the evolution of the race. With one language paramount, Fetichist poetry, finding free scope by a large introduction of subjective milieus, will evoke master works more in keeping than the ancient with the normal age of Humanity. In both these periods trial train. ing. In regard to private education, the present is the fitting some indus- place for a remark, affecting both its periods, but specially applicable to the second, on the spontaneous beginning of practical life. Though such action as there is at that time should be of an esthetic rather than an industrial character, it is well to assist the natural growth of the instinct of construction, were it only as a counterpoise to that of destruction. The mother will easily turn to purpose, if she attend to the point: intellectually, the power there is in action to evidence the conditions and difficulties of effecting any result whatever; morally, its tendency to implant a direct consciousness of the value of the voluntary cooperation of men and even of animals. The child must be taught that feelings are more impor tant than acts. Public Instruction. Its general spirit. The supre macy of the Heart. Again, these two periods are the time for creating the fundamental habit of mind which should always put forward feelings as more important than acts, and this is effected by leading the child to judge of acts by their bearing upon feelings, be it as exercise or as result. Such teaching can only be begun with effect at the age when actions, as of no serious consequence, leave the motives which inspired them open to view and more intelligible from their simple character. It is then that the mother lays the synthetical basis of Positive morality by making the child feel that happiness consists above all in the gratification of our kindly affections, acts being only the means by which we satisfy and even excite them. Having said enough on private education, we must pass to the public instruction which is its systematic complement, the nature and course of which I have already determined. The chief difficulty it presents is this, how to develope the intellect without detriment to the supremacy of the heart, which indeed it ought to fortify. To bring the two into harmony is the high prerogative of Positivism, which succeeds Theologism in the spiritual government of mankind, in order to repair the errors, intellectual and moral, inherent in the second or indirect causality. For the earlier form sanctioned the primacy of feeling as well as allowed the search after laws; so that in reality the sole flaw in the Fetichist synthesis was its absolute character, inevitable in the beginning of things. When limited in its scientific application to the cases in which we cannot discover the law, Fetichity, thus made relative, from the esthetic point of view should keep and even enlarge its original domain, in order to aid Positivity in the intellectual, no less than in the moral, sphere. Theologism, on the contrary, the value of which was mainly political, aggravated the main disadvantages of the absolute philosophy, by making happiness and perfection consist in a life of contemplation. True it is, that the revolt of the intellect against the heart reached its full proportions only under the impulse of metaphysics, and that more particularly during the period of modern anarchy, yet if we trace it to its source we come to the synthesis of Theology, at the time when the priesthood no longer controlled the doctrine. But by introducing Positivism as the direct successor of Fetichism, the normal state enables us to avoid, in the education of the individual, the dangers unavoidable in the evolution of the race, as it gets clear of the disturbing influences of unchecked abstraction. For this, it is enough if the analytical study of the doctrine be entered on under the synthetical direction of the worship, as is indicated in the everduring fusion of the philosophic function in the priestly office, to which the scientific elaboration will always be made secondary. With its foundations laid in the developement of the affections, and with the preliminary cultivation of the artistic faculties, the study of abstract science closes education by establishing the systematic unity which is the only possible guide for active life. The effort of analysis required for the construction of this unity must always be treated as limited to adolescence, and as introductory to the regime of synthesis, the only perfectly rational regime, as in it all our conceptions converge to the service of Humanity. Such is the judgment formally enunciated in the sacrament appointed for the inauguration of the public education, a judgment expanded on fitting occasions during the whole course of scientific study. It is more firmly rooted during that course, by three influences : the continuity of the mother's care; the prolongation of the esthetic culture; the opening of the preparatory stage of practical life. Bound to teach in succession the seven fundamental sciences, the professor is preserved from any excessive predilection for any one of them, by keeping constantly before him their synthetical object, one in full conformity with the priestly character. Addressed alternately to the two sexes in the same week, his lectures, as a natural result, lead both teacher and learner to appreciate the continuous submission of the intellect to feeling. For this worship tute the doctrine. purpose the must insti study of the Each profes the seven succession. sor teaches sciences in The High exercise con- against intellectual ism. The novi ciate moral intellectual, Still in spite of all the safeguards inherent in the encyclopædic system, the concentration of the intellect acts with such force, that nothing but the watchfulness of the High-Priest, aided by public opinion, can prevent or remedy its dangerous influence on the heart and on the intellect. For the right institution of the scientific noviciate, it must rather than be always represented as having a moral, rather than an intellectual aim. Through it faith ought to perfect love, in order to regulate activity, the means being, the study from the relative point of view of the universal order. In the private education, the growth of affection and the culture of the imagination have given, as a natural consequence, the sense of moral laws, and even of the value of voluntary submission, more particularly through the instrumentality of personal worship. But this spontaneous result remains insufficient and precarious so long as the order within us is disconnected from the order without us, to which it is subject. It is not possible to consolidate the soul but by linking it to its environment by the intermedium of the body. Hence arises the necessity for a course of abstraction, the object being the formation of general conceptions as the indispensable condition of fixed convictions shared by all. The course must begin, then, with the simplest phenomena, which underlie all the others, and must proceed by gradations to the phenomena of moral science, where abstraction ceases, and where, consequently, the episode of analysis ends in the systematisation of the state of synthesis, in its origin purely spontaneous. Demonstra tion culti vated for submission. The noviciate will lead the Positivist The Positive religion triumphs over the tendencies to criticism encouraged by its scientific introduction and certain to recur during the abstract education unless there be a constant surveillance. In cultivating demonstration it aims at producing, not barren or divergent discussion, but active and voluntary submission, which is to ennoble even the most physical necessities, by connecting them with moral advance. It is not a demonstrated faith, but a faith which at all times is demonstrable, that suits the maturity of human reason, when it will be the object to trace consequences, not to discuss principles. At the close of his encyclopædic noviciate, the Positivist will feel, more strongly than before, the need of subordinating the individual intellect to the intelligence of the race, and of vidual must keeping speculative powers for the incidental demands of active to see that his indi |