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CHAPTER XXXIX.—The Psychology of Science and Philoso-

Pp. 376-400.

§ 235. Science systematized results of observation; particular

objects having the form of time reveal only a portion of their poten-

tialities at a given moment; experience gradually gathers all the

phases together in the definition of the object: (a) science learns

to see each thing in the perspective of its history; (b) education

in science gives directive power to the labourer. § 236. The three

stages of science: (1) inventorying; (2) study of interrelations;

(3) comparative history of the science; (a) and (b) the nature of a

fact; it is a relative synthesis, including less or more according

to the intelligence of the thinker who thinks it; (c) the entire fact

to Aristotle would be the entirety of all facts. § 237. Philosophy

investigates the presuppositions of existence; it seeks a first prin-

ciple. § 238. Natural science points toward philosophy as a sort

of science of sciences. § 239. Philosophy finds the principle of

causality transcendent―i. e., it contains as its nucleus origination

or self-activity; philosophy does not inventory anything, it as-

sumes the inventory already made, and tries to explain it by the

first principle. § 240. Philosophy not a science of things in gen-

eral, but a special kind of knowledge—namely, of the general forms

found in the world by the several sciences, and the relation of these

general forms of existence to the first principle. § 241. All philos-

ophies imply the same first principle, no matter what name is given

to it; call it X, and it is assumed as originating all that exists through

its own activity, and hence must be self-active: (a) the evolution

theory in its positive aspect; (b) in its negative aspect. § 242. To

pass from intellect to will-i. e., from theory to practice-requires

a philosophic activity of the mind, because deliberation must be

arrested, the case must be closed before the will acts; the philo-

sophic activity is one which closes the inventory and assumes that

all the facts are in, and then passes judgment regarding their

bearing on the question; if the mind kept always in the scientific

attitude, it would never act; (a) the bearing of the facts as a whole

is seen by a survey which is taken by the philosophic attitude of

the mind; (b), (c) science in its third stage becomes philosoph-
ical in its endeavour to discover the relation of each special sci-
ence to the others; (d) the working scientific man has to resist
the tendency to philosophize. § 243. Since philosophy endeav-
ours to discover the bearing of all the conditioning circumstances
on a situation, it is ethical. § 244. The first stage of science not
practical, and its results not tending to action or ethics. § 245. As
the mediator between the intellect and the will, the philosophical
attitude always must have a place. § 246. The psychology of the
history of philosophy; the five intentions of the mind: (I) the
first intention the most rudimentary form of knowing-namely,
sense-perception, seizing and holding the fleeting objects of sense
by means of the universals. § 247. (II) The second intention con-
templates the universals, classes, or genera, and is the second stage
of the scientific mind. § 248. (III) The third intention is the
philosophic stage of the mind; it looks to the unity of all univer-
sals in a first principle. § 249. (IV) The fourth intention is that
of philosophical scepticism; it observes method and criticises the
third intention by showing inadequacy in the demonstrations of
the first principle. § 250. (V) The fifth intention refutes sceptical
philosophy by showing method as a whole, and proving the first
principle, not by ontological steps, but by finding one by one the
presuppositions of each and every sceptical argument, these being
psychological attitudes; when every sceptical attitude is shown
to presuppose the result of the ontological proof of the third in-
tention, philosophy is re-established on a firm basis: (a) Fichte's
version of Kant's criticism; (b) Hegel's discovery of the presup-
position of the ethical foundation of Kant's Practical Reason;
(c) Hegel's logic.

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NEW YORK, .. BOSTON, ... CHICAGO.

PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS OF

EDUCATION.

INTRODUCTION.

81. It is said that the teacher needs to know psychology because it is his business to educate the mind. And it is true that in his vocation he is constantly occupied with a critical observation of the mind in a few of its aspects. For this is necessary in order to manage a school successfully. The teacher must observe the pupil's grasp of the topic of his lesson. He must interpret the pupil's behaviour by such knowledge as he can attain of his disposition and the spirit of his intentions; he must assign lessons of a length suited to the mental capacities which he knows his pupils to possess; he must grade them in classes according to his knowledge of those capacities; he must arrange a course of study in accordance with the laws of mental development.

§ 2. If the teacher knows nothing of psychology

1

as a science, he must copy in detail the methods of others, and rely on his general knowledge of human nature derived from experience. Like all uneducated workmen, he may succeed after a sort by following tradition unaided by science, but he will not develop beyond a narrow degree of perfection in details. He will have no insight into the general relations of his work. He can not safely deviate from routine, nor venture to criticise his own work or the work of others. If he has learned good models, he may pass for a good teacher; if he has learned bad ones, he is unable to perceive their defects. Possessing no scientific knowledge of the mind, he can not lift himself above the details of his art to the principles which govern them, and become himself an original source of directive energy. Some knowledge of the mind every successful teacher must have, although in so many cases it is unsystematic, and consequently unscientific. Ordinary experience differs from science through its lack of completeness and consistency. It is fragmentary and disconnected. Science compensates the inequalities of individual experience by re-enforcing it with the aggregate of all other experiences.

§ 3. Psychology is of two kinds: empirical and rational.

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