The last sentence has brought us to the balancing of new and old, of the far and that close by, involved in reflection. The more remote supplies the stimulus and the motive; the nearer at hand furnishes the point of approach and the available resources. This principle may also be stated in this form: the best thinking occurs when the easy and the difficult are duly proportioned to each other. The easy and the familiar are equivalents, as are the strange and the difficult. Too much that is easy gives no ground for inquiry; too much of the hard renders inquiry hopeless.
The necessity of the interaction of the near and the far follows directly from the nature of thinking. Where there is thought, something present suggests and indicates something absent. Accordingly unless the familiar is presented under conditions that are in some respect unusual, it gives no jog to thinking, it makes no demand upon what is not present in order to be understood. And if the subject presented is totally strange, there is no basis upon which it may suggest anything serviceable for its comprehension. When a person first has to do with fractions, for example, they will be wholly baffling so far as they do not signify to him some relation that he has already mastered in dealing with whole numbers. When fractions have become thoroughly familiar, his perception of them acts simply as a signal to do certain things; they are a "substitute sign," to which he can react without thinking. (Ante, p. 178.) If, nevertheless, the situation as a whole presents something novel and hence uncertain, the entire response is not mechanical, because this mechanical operation is put to use in solving a problem. There is no end to this spiral process: foreign subject-matter transformed through thinking into a familiar possession becomes a resource for judging and assimilating additional foreign subject-matter.
The need for both imagination and observation in every mental enterprise illustrates another aspect of the same principle. Teachers who have tried object-lessons of the conventional type have usually found that when the lessons were new, pupils were attracted to them as a diversion, but as soon as they became matters of course they were as dull and wearisome as was ever the most mechanical study of mere symbols. Imagination could not play about the objects so as to enrich them. The feeling that instruction in "facts, facts" produces a narrow Gradgrind is justified not because facts in themselves are limiting, but because facts are dealt out as such hard and fast ready-made articles as to leave no room to imagination. Let the facts be presented so as to stimulate imagination, and culture ensues naturally enough. The converse is equally true. The imaginative is not necessarily the imaginary; that is, the unreal. The proper function of imagination is vision of realities that cannot be exhibited under existing conditions of sense-perception. Clear insight into the remote, the absent, the obscure is its aim. History, literature, and geography, the principles of science, nay, even geometry and arithmetic, are full of matters that must be imaginatively realized if they are realized at all. Imagination supplements and deepens observation; only when it turns into the fanciful does it become a substitute for observation and lose logical force.
A final exemplification of the required balance between near and far is found in the relation that obtains between the narrower field of experience realized in an individual's own contact with persons and things, and the wider experience of the race that may become his through communication. Instruction always runs the risk of swamping the pupil's own vital, though narrow, experience under masses of communicated material. The instructor ceases and the teacher begins at the point where communicated matter stimulates into fuller and more significant life that which has entered by the strait and narrow gate of sense-perception and motor activity. Genuine communication involves contagion; its name should not be taken in vain by terming communication that which produces no community of thought and purpose between the child and the race of which he is the heir.
INDEX
Abstract, 135-144
Abstraction, 155 f.
Action, activity, activities, 46, 140 f., 157-169, 190 f.
Active attitude and the concept, 128
Analysis, 111-115, 152 f.;
in education, 112
Apperception, 199;
apperceptive masses, 203
Application, 129 f., 212 f.
Apprehension, 119 f.;
see Understanding.
Artist, attitude of, 219 f.
Articulation, 3
Authority, 4, 25
Bacon, 22, 25, 33
Bain, 155
Balance, 38
Behavior, 5, 42-4, 54 f.;
see Action, Occupations
Belief, 1, 3-7;
reached indirectly, 18
Central factor in thinking, 7
Children, 42 f.
Clifford, 148
Coherence, 3, 80
Comparison, 89 f., 202
Comprehension, 120;
see Understanding.
Concentration, 40
Concept, conception, 107, 125-9, 213;
see Meaning.
Conclusion, 3, 5 f., 40, 77, 80 f.;
technique of, 87 f.
Concrete, 135-44
Congruity, 3, 72
Connection, 7;
see Relation.
Consecutive, 2, 40, 42
Consequence, consequential, 2;
consequences, 5
Consistency, 40
Continuity, 3, 40, 80
Control, 18-28;
of deduction, 93-100;
of induction, 84-93;
of suggestion, 84 f., 93;
see Regulation.
Corroborate, corroboration, 9, 77
Curiosity, 31 ff., 105
Darwin, 38, 90, 127
Data, 79 f., 95, 103 f., 106
Decision, 107
Deduction, 79, 93-100, 103;
control of, 93-100
Definition, 130 f.;
definitions, 131-4, 212
Development, of ideas, 83;
see Elaboration, Ratiocination, Reasoning.
Discipline, 63, 78;
formal, 45, 50
Discourse, consecutive, 185 f.
Discovery, inductive, 81, 116
Division, 131
Dogmatism, 149, 198
Doing, 139, 190
Doubt, 6, 9, 13, 102;
see Perplexity, Uncertainty.
Drill, 52, 63
Drudgery, 218
Education, intellectual, 57, 62;
aim of, 143 f., 156
Elaboration, of ideas, 75 f., 84, 94 f., 103, 106, 209;
see Development, Ratiocination, Reasoning.
Emerson, 173
Emotion, 4, 11, 74
Emphasis, 112, 114 f.
Empirical thinking, 145-9
End, 11 f.
Evidence, 5, 7 f., 27, 103 f.;
see Grounds.
Experience, 132, 156, 199 f., 224
Experiment, experimental, 70 f., 77, 91 f., 99 f., 151 f., 154
Extension, 130 f.
Fact vs idea, 109;
facts, 3, 5
Faculty psychology, 45
Familiar, familiarity, 120-25, 136 f., 206, 214 f., 221 f.
Fooling, 217
Formalism;
see Discipline.
Formal steps of instruction, 202, 206
Formulation, 112 f., 209, 212, 214-17
Freedom, 64 f.;
intellectual, 66
Function, 123;
function of signifying, 7, 15
General 80, 82, 99, 182 f.;
see Principles, Universal.
Generality, 129, 134
Generalization, 211 f.
Grounds, 1, 4-8, 80;
see Evidence.
Guiding factor in reflection, 11
Habits;
see Action.
Herbart, 202
Herbartian method, 202-6
Hobhouse, 31
Hypothesis, 5, 75, 77, 81 f., 94 f., 108, 209
Idea, 75, 77, 79, 107-10;
see Meaning.
Idle thinking, 2
Image, 109
Imagination, 165 f., 223 f.
Imitation, 47, 51, 160
Implication, 5, 75, 77
Impulse, 64
Induction, 79-93, 103;
control of, 84-93;
scientific, 86
Inference, 26 f., 75, 77, 101;
critical, 74, 82;
systematic, 81
Information, 52 f., 197-200
Inquiry, 5, 9 f.
Intellect, intellectual activity, 44, 50, 62
Intension, 130 f.
Internal congruity, 3
Isolation, 96-100, 117, 191
James, 119, 121, 153 f.
Jevons, 91 f., 183, 192
Judgment, 5;
factors of, 101;
good judgment, 101, 103, 106 f.;
and inference, 101 ff.;
intuitive, 104 f.;
principles of, 106 f.;
suspended, 74, 82, 105, 108;
tentative, 101
Knowledge, 3 f., 6, 95;
spiral movement of, 120, 223
Language, 170-87;
and education, 176-87;
and meaning, 171;
technical, 184 f.;
as a tool of thought, 170 ff., 179
Leap, in inference, 26, 75
Leisure, 209 f.
Locke, 19 n., 22-5
Logical, 56 f.;
vs. psychological, 62 f.
Meaning, meanings, 7, 17, 79 f., 82, 94, 116-34;
capital fund of, store of, 118, 120, 126, 161, 174, 180;
individual, 173 f.;
organization of, 175, 185;
as tools, keys, instruments, 108 f., 120, 125 f., 129;
See Concept.
Memory, 107
Method, 46-50, 58;
analytic and synthetic, 114;
formal, 60
Mill, 18 n.
Mood, 5
Motivation, 42
Negative cases, 90
Notion. See Concept.
Object lessons, 140, 192
Observation, 3, 7, 69 f., 76 f., 85, 91, 96, 188-97, 223 f.;
in schools, 193-7;
scientific, 196
Occupation, occupations, 43, 99, 167 f.
Openmindedness, 219
Order, orderliness, 2, 39, 41, 46, 57;
see Consecutive.
Organization, 39, 41;
of subject matter, 62
Originality, 198
Particulars, 80, 82;
cf. General, Universal.
Passion, 4, 23, 25, 106
Perception, 3, 190;
cf. Observation
Perplexity, 9, 11, 72
Placing, 114, 126
Play, 161-7, 217-21;
of mind, 219
Playfulness, 162, 218 f.
Practical deliberation, 68 f.
Prejudice, 4
Principles, 212 f.
Problem, 9, 12, 33, 72, 74, 76, 109, 120, 191 f., 199, 207
Proof, 7, 27, 81
Pseudo-idea, 109
Psychological (vs. logical), 62 f.
Purpose, 11
Ratiocination, 75 f., 83
Reason, reasoning, 75-8, 94 f., 98
Reasons, 5 f.
Recitation, 201-13;
factors in, 206-13
Reflection, 2 f., 5 f.;
central function of, 116;
double movement of, 79-84;
five steps in, 72-8, 203 f.
Regulation, 18-28;
see Control.
Relation, relationship, 82, 97;
see Connection.
Scientific thinking, 145-6
Sense training, 190-97
Sequence, 2; cf. Consequence.
Sidgwick, 127
Signify, 7, 15
Signs, 16, 171-6
Spiral movement, see Knowledge.
Stimulus-response, 47
Studies, types of, 50
Subject matter, 58 f.;
intellectual, 45 f.;
logical, 61 f.;
practical, 49;
theoretical, 49;
and the teacher, 204 f.
Substitute signs, 177 f., 223
Succession, 3
Suggestion, 7, 12, 27, 74 f., 84 f.;
control of, 84 f., 93;
dimensions of, 34-7
Supposition, 4, 9
Suspense of judgment, 13, 74, 82
Symbols, see Signs.
Synthesis, 114 f.
Terms, 3, 72 f., 76, 79, 95
Testing, 9, 13, 41, 82, 116;
of deduction, 96, 99
Theory, 138
Theoretical, 137
Thinking, complete, 96, 98 f., 100;
see Reasoning, Reflection.
Thought, 8 f.;
educative value of, 2;
reflective, 2;
train of, 3;
types of, 1
Truth, truths, 3
Uncertainty, see Doubt, Perplexity.
Unconscious, 214 ff.
Uncritical thinking, 12
Understanding, 116-20;
direct and indirect, 118-20, 136
Universal, 9
Vagueness, 129 f., 182, 212
Vailati, 81 n.
Venn, 17
Verification, 77
Vocabulary, 180-4
Ward, 110 n.
Warrant, 7
Wisdom, 52
Wonder, 31, 33 f.
Wordsworth, 31
Work, 162-7, 217-19