The kind of teacher who stiffens into the school-master misses his opportunities, or falls a victim to that arrestment of development which has overtaken many school subjects, and which sometimes overtakes the whole of school life." (Meiklejohn, Inaugural Address, Bell Chair of Education, p. 11, 1876, Edinburgh.)

219. "Întellectually, as well as morally, he (Arnold) felt that the teacher ought himself to be perpetually learning, and so constantly above the level of his scholars. 'I am sure,' he said, speaking of his pupils at Laleham, that I do not judge of them or expect of them, as I should, if I were not taking pains to improve my own mind.' For this reason he maintained that no schoolmaster ought to remain at his post much more than fourteen or fifteen years, lest, by that time, he should have fallen behind the scholarship of the age; and by his own reading and literary works he endeavored constantly to act upon this principle himself. The dangers' (of falling behind), he observed, were of various kinds. One boy may acquire a contempt for the information itself, which he sees possessed by a man whom he feels nevertheless to be far below him. Another (pupil) will fancy himself as much above nearly all the world as he feels he is above his own tutor, and will become self-sufficient and scornful. A third will believe it to be his duty, as a point of humility, to bring himself down intellectually to a level with one whom he feels bound to reverence; and thus there have been instances where the veneration of a young

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man of ability for a teacher of small powers has been like a millstone round the neck of an eagle.' (Arnold, Life of, p. 137, ed. 1870.)

220. We may say that common sense scarcely claims to provide more than rather indefinite general rules, which no prudent man should neglect without giving himself a reason for doing so. Such reasons may either be drawn from one's knowledge of some peculiarities in one's nature, or from the experience of others whom one has ground for believing to be more like oneself than the average of mankind are. For though, as we saw, there is considerable risk of error in thus appropriating the experience of others—and in fact the expression of it will sometimes appear to be as hesitating and contradictory as the judgments of common sense-we may extract from it counsel sufficiently consistent and authoritative to supplement at least roughly the deficiencies of our own empirical generalizations." (Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, p. 145, ed. 1874.)

221. But many who allow the use of systematic principles in other things, are accustomed to cry up Common-Sense as the sufficient and only safe guide in Reasoning. Now by CommonSense is meant, I apprehend, (when the term is used with any distinct meaning,) an exercise of the judgment unaided by any Art or system of rules such an exercise as we must necessarily employ in numberless cases of daily occurrence; in which, having no established principles to guide us,—no line of procedure, as it were, dis

tinctly chalked out-we must needs act on the best extemporaneous conjectures we can form. He who is eminently skilful in doing this, is said to possess a superior degree of Common-Sense. But that Common-Sense is only our second best guide that the rules of Art, if judiciously framed are always desirable when they can be had, is an assertion, for the truth of which I may appeal to the testimony of mankind in general; which is so much the more valuable, inasmuch as it may be accounted the testimony of adversaries. For the generality have a strong predilection in favor of Common Sense, except in those points in which they, respectively, possess the knowledge of a system of rules; but in these points they deride any one who trusts to unaided Common-Sense. "A sailor e.g. will, perhaps, despise the pretensions of medical men, and prefer treating a disease by Common-Sense: but he would ridicule the proposal of navigating a ship by Common-Sense, without regard to the maxims of nautical art. A physician, again, will perhaps contemn Systems of PoliticalEconomy, of Logic, or Metaphysics, and insist on the superior wisdom of trusting to CommonSense in such matters; but he would never approve of trusting to Common-Sense in the treatment of diseases.

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Neither, again, would the Architect recommend a reliance on Common-Sense alone, in building, nor a Musician, in music, to the neglect of those systems of rules, which, in their respective arts have been deduced from scientific reason

ing aided by experience. And the induction might be extended to every department of practice. Since, therefore, each gives the preference to unassisted Common-Sense only in those cases where he himself has nothing else to trust to, and invariably resorts to the rules of art, wherever he possesses the knowledge of them, it is plain that mankind universally bear their testimony, though unconsciously and often unwillingly, to the preferableness of systematic knowledge to conjectural judgments.

There is, however, abundant room for the employment of Common-Sense in the application of the system. To bring arguments out of the form in which they are expressed in conversation and in books, into the regular logical shape, must be of course, the business of Common-Sense, aided by practice, for such arguments are, by supposition, not as yet within the province of science. (Whately, Elements of Logic, 1859, pp. xi.-xii. of Preface.)

222." The one talent which is worth all other talents put together in all human affairs is the talent of judging right upon imperfect materials, the talent if you please of guessing right. It is a talent which no rules will ever teach and which even experience does not always give. It often coexists with a good deal of slowness and dulness and with a very slight power of expression. All that can be said about it is, that to see things as they are, without exaggeration or passion, is essential to it; but how can we see things as they are? Simply by open

ing our eyes and looking with whatever power we may have." (Stephen, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, p. 352, ed. 1874, London.)

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223. The assumed logical perfection of thought bears about the same relation to the ordinary state of the human mind as the assumption of perfectly rigid levers and perfectly flexible cords bears in the action of those instruments in practice. But, on the other hand, the possibility of making such allowances implies that the difference between practice and theory is one of degree only, and not of kind. The instrument as used may not be identical with the instrument as contemplated, but it must be supposed capable of approximation to it." (Mánsel, Prol. Log., p. 17.)

224. "It is a common notion, or at least it is implied in many common modes of speech, that the thoughts, feelings, and actions of sentient beings are not a subject of science, in the same strict sense in which this is true of the objects of outward nature. This notion seems to involve some confusion of ideas, which it is necessary to begin by clearing up. Any facts are fitted, in themselves, to be a subject of science which follow one another according to constant laws, although those laws may not have been discovered, nor even be discoverable by our existing resources. Scientific inquiry has not yet succeeded in ascertaining the order of antecedence and consequence among phenomena, so as to be able, at least in our regions of the earth, to predict them with certainty, or