238 QUESTION: Which are of the greater Importance in Educationthe Classics, or Mathematics? To give a wide and useful scope to this discussion, it may be as well to let the word "Classics stand for "General Literature," and "Mathematics" for "Science." The supporters of the Classics might contend that they are of greater value than Mathematics: I. Because they tend to widen thought, whilst Mathematics tend to concentrate it. II. Because they lead to the cultivation of all the faculties of the mind, whilst Mathema tics simply exercise the perceptive and reasoning powers. III. Because they promote the enlargement and spiritualisation of the mind, whilst Mathematics tend to make it mechanical, narrow and dogmatical. IV. Because they fill the mind with images of beauty which tend both to mental happiness and moral goodness, whilst Mathematics simply fill the mind with facts, and close it against all speculative Philosophy. V. Because they promote enquiry and faith, whilst Mathematics tend to make the mind reject as false whatever cannot be proved by logic to be true. VI. Because by exercising and stimulating thought, they lead to the elevation of mental over mechanical force, whilst Mathematical science tends to subjugate spiritual to material power. The defenders of Mathematics might say that they are more beneficial to the mind than the Classics; I. Because they are the best means we possess of arriving satisfactorily at physical, mental, and even moral, truth. II. Because, by placing facts in due mutual relation, they form the only sure foundation on which we can build our Knowledge, our Faith, and our Hopes. III. Because, by cultivating the study of Science, they lead to the discovery of mechanical, mineral, and other material forces, which mere speculation would never have found out. IV. Because, by fixing the mind on fact and proof, they give it firmness, clearness, and solid principles; and render it less liable to be misled. V. Because, by filling the mind with absolute Knowledge, they form the starting-points to truth; whilst mere speculative thought mostly leads towards bewilderment and error. VI. Because they train the mind into steady, earnest and continuous habits of thought: and thereby produce patience, constancy, determination, order, quickness of apprehension, foresight and judgment. VII. Because they restrain that tendency to credulity, speculative belief, and visionary Philosophy, towards which mere untrained thought generally leads. See BROUGHAM, ON SUBJECTS OF SCIENCE, AS QUESTION: Are Brutes endowed with Reason? THE affirmative may be supported by arguments from experience and from analogy. Reason may be defined to be the power of drawing conclusions from premises; - of perceiving differences; and of forming a judgment from ideas derived from observation or memory: and the following (among other) instances may be adduced to show that animals possess this power: I. If a dog be beaten for stealing meat from a butcher's shop, he will never pass that shop again unless he be compelled: here the recollection of his punishment clearly operates with him as a reason to prevent him from incurring the chance of a second beating. II. If an elephant, a horse, or a dog be injured, he will always recollect the injurer, and if possible punish him: instances of this kind are R to be found in every work on natural history: here we see a rational recollection, and a rational appreciation of revenge as a satisfaction and punishment. III. In the skill of the bee, the provident habits of the ant, the sagacity of the dog, and the ingenuity (amongst other instances) of the monkey, we clearly see the evidence of constructive, rational, and mental power, which must own a much higher source than mere physical life; and which we cannot help imputing to the existence of the same intellectual intelligence (the same in essence, though different in degree) as is possessed by man. I. That the rational faculties which appear to exist in the Brute Creation are simply the faculties of instinct, and not of Reason at all. II. That instinct is a species of intelligence quite different from Reason, consisting mostly of an intuitive perception of facts, whilst Reason is the power that leads us to discover truth by search. III. That the ideas of animals are essentially different from the ideas of man, inasmuch as they are simply perceptive, whilst man's are both perceptive and reflective. |