Spontaneous Activity in Education Part 18

When in 1628 Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood, physiology was almost unknown, and medicine was in the full tide of empiricism. It is well known that the Faculty of Medicine of Paris refused to believe in circulation, in _spite of_ experiments, and that it persecuted and calumniated Harvey. "That which pleases me in my son," said Diafoirus, "and in which he follows my example, is, that he remains faithful to the opinions of our ancient teachers, and that he has always refused either to _understand_ or to _listen_ to the arguments and experiments of the pretended discoveries of our century, especially as regards the circulation of the blood."

The history of the discovery of germinative foliations in the embryonic development of vertebrates forms one of the most impressive of human doc.u.ments. In 1700 the theory of _pre-formation_ was vigorously upheld amongst the many ideas relating to generation: that is to say, it was believed that the germs contained little organisms completely formed which would eventually unfold and increase the parts of infinitesimal dimensions which were packed one within the other.

This theory applied to every living creature, animal, vegetable, and human. It had led, by its own logical development, to the more far-reaching theory of "mutual inclusion"--that is, the doctrine that, as all living organisms are _pre-formed_, they must of necessity all have existed from the Creation, the one included, or wrapped up, in the other. All humanity must have lain in the ovaries of Eve. When in 1690 Leuwenhoek discovered spermatozoa by the aid of the microscope, the idea was evolved that each male cell contained a complete microscopic man, the _homunculus_; and then it was announced that not Eve, but Adam had contained all humanity within himself. Hence the two contradictory theories which in the eighteenth century kept their adherents sharply divided, the theories of the ovulists and those of the animalculists, and the dispute seemed to offer little hope of a possible decision. The names of famous scientists and philosophers were a.s.sociated with these dissensions, those, for instance, of Spallanzani and of Liebnitz, who applied the principles of generation even to the soul. "Thus I should think," said Liebnitz, "that the souls which will one day become human souls, were present in the germ; that they have always existed as organized bodies in their progenitors from Adam onwards--that is, from the beginning of things." [8]

Haller, the ovulist, who had great authority as a physiologist, in a famous work, _Elementa physiologiae_, upheld the principle vigorously: "_Nulla est epigenesis. Nulla in corpore animale pars ante aliam facta est et omnes simul creatae existunt_" (nothing is created anew, no part of the human body is made before any other part, all are created at the same time). Making a calculation based on Biblical cosmogony of the number of human beings who were packed in the ovaries of Eve, he reckons them at two hundred thousand millions. Such was the state of thought when in 1759 K. F. Wolff published some of his studies in the work _Theoria generationis_, where he maintained, on the strength of experiments and microscopic observations made on the embryos of fowls, that new organisms are not pre-formed, but that they create themselves entirely, starting from nothing--that is, from a microscopic cell, simple as are all primitive cells. He described the simple process by which the real evolution of individuals is brought about: from a single cell, by division, two, and then four and then eight, are formed, and so on. And the cells thus germinated divide themselves into two or three tiny folds of "primitive folioles" from which all the organs are evolved, beginning with the alimentary ca.n.a.l. "This a.s.sertion," says Wolff "is not a fanciful theory; it is a description of facts collected by means of the most trustworthy observations."

[Footnote 8: From Haeckel's _Anthropogenie_.]

All the scientists of his day knew and made use of the microscope; all might have taken an egg, that is, the embryo of a fowl, as a subject for observation; they were not indifferent to the problem of individual genesis, but in their case it had merely excited the most complex efforts of the imagination, and had divided them into factions, as adversaries in a battle of thought. Could any one of them attempt to experiment and observe save at the risk of destroying himself together with his adversaries, as Samson destroyed himself with the Philistines? The possibility that there might be some truth in what had been seen and described, and that it might recur, should indeed have induced some one to venture upon a road which, if it proved to be the right one, would have been a glorious path to a future of discoveries and distinctions. But no. A dense fog obscured all minds, and the dazzling truth could not pierce it; thus all progress in embryology was precluded.

Fifty years had pa.s.sed, and Wolff, poor and persecuted, had died at Petrograd, an exile from his native land, when Pander and Ernest von Baer grappled anew with the theory of "blastodermic foliation." Then the scientific world _perceived_ the truth and accepted the evidence, inaugurating those studies in embryology which shed so much l.u.s.ter on the nineteenth century.

Why was it necessary that fifty years should elapse before men could see what was evident? What had happened in these fifty years? The work of Wolff, dead and forgotten, can have had no influence whatever. The fact was merely that men saw _subsequently_ what it had been previously _impossible for them to see_. A kind of internal maturity must have come about in them, by virtue of which their spiritual eyes were opened, and they saw. When _those eyes were closed_, evidence was useless. Fifty years earlier, a direct attack would have spent itself on insuperable obstacles; but with the lapse of time the subject presented itself, and was simply and universally accepted, not only without a struggle, but without any excitement.

This fact might be arguable in relation to the internal maturation of the ma.s.ses; but it is beyond question in its relation to the individual. When an obvious truth cannot be seen, we must retire, and leave the individual to mature. A struggle "to bring about perception of evidence" would be bitter and exhausting. But when maturity comes, we shall find the seer filled with enthusiasm, and bearing fruit like the vines of the Land of Promise.

When in 1859 Charles Darwin expounded the theory of evolution in his book, "The Origin of Species," he recognized the great influence it had had upon the thought of his day, for he wrote in his note-book: "My theory will lead to a philosophy." His conception of the struggle for life and of the natural selection of characteristics, so widely adopted by the thinkers of his day, popularized the principles of Lamarck as to the casual formation of new characteristics in a species by adaptation to environment; Darwin's conception carried these principles along with it--and almost fused them in its own content.

These principles, excluding both creation and its finalities, implicitly denied the immortality of the soul. The effect of such a revolution may be imagined; for many centuries the soul had been the _object of life_, and when the fundamental faith of existence was shaken, the life of the conscience itself was convulsed. It may be supposed that there was an anxious search for contradictions in the destructive theory, if on no other grounds than that of the instinct to preserve ancient beliefs, which lies deeply rooted in the human race.

But let us take into consideration the two revolutionary principles which so greatly impressed and fired the consciousness of the university students of several generations. One principle was: "There can be no function without an organ." The other principle which created much enthusiasm among studious youths was: "The function creates the organ." What! There is no function without an organ, nor can the function even _exist without_ the organ; and yet, on the other hand, the function without the organ can exist so vigorously as to _create_? No such glaring and tangible contradiction had ever existed in any theory.

And it cannot be said that Darwinism and the principles of Lamarck were hastily studied and confused in a varied series of philosophical theories, for Darwinism had isolated itself as a victorious idea which drives out all other ideas, as the light of day disperses the darkness of night. And students dwelt upon it, anxious to construct a new morality and a new conscience; therefore these two principles were not studied coldly and languidly. Moreover, they _penetrated together_ into the consciousness and excited enthusiasm _each on its own account_; on such a triumphant contradiction it was proposed to destroy a world and create another.

The final conclusion of thought, then, was this: "We are mere beasts, there is no substantial difference between the animals and ourselves; we are apes, but our more remote ancestors were earthworms." With what ardor did professors from their chairs a.n.a.lyze the psychology of men, to prove that, try as we may, we can find nothing in ourselves which we do not share with animals, and with what enthusiasm did their pupils applaud them! When professors of psychiatry removed the brains of pigeons and monkeys by vivisection, and, after curing the creatures, exhibited them at international psychological congresses, devoting the most sincere attention to the study of their psychical reactions, observing the att.i.tudes of their bodies, their activity of perception, and similar things--all really believed that an animal without a brain could throw light upon the psychology of man!

When we think that this was the epoch of _positivism_--that is to say, of those who could not believe without touching, we are profoundly impressed by this reflection: The intelligence, then, is threatened by dangers, like the spirit. It may be obscured, it may contain a contradiction, an "error," without perceiving it, and as a result of a single unnoticed error it may rush into a species of delirium, a mortal aberration. Like the spirit, then, it has its way of salvation, and it _needs to be sustained_ lest it should perish. The support it requires is _not that of the senses_. Like the spirit, it needs a continual purification, which, like the fish of Tobias, heals the eyes of their blindness. That "self-care" which the hygiene of to-day prescribes for the body, and which makes us spend so much time even on cleaning and polis.h.i.+ng our nails, should be extended to the inner man, that this may preserve its health and its integrity.

This should be the object of "the education of the intelligence." To educate the intelligence is to save it from its peculiar perils of disease and death; it is to "purge it of its offenses." We shall not educate the intelligence if we weary it by making it learn things.

This is patent in these days of ours, when the victims of nervous disorders and lunacy abound, and when, even among those who are considered healthy, the material consequences of madness may explode, threatening the whole of humanity with ruin.

Our care of the child should be governed, not by the desire "to make him learn things," but by the endeavor always to keep burning within him that light which is called the intelligence. If to this end we must consecrate ourselves as did the vestals of old, it will be a work worthy of so great a result.

IX

IMAGINATION

=The creative imagination of science is based upon truth=.--If, a century ago, some one had told the men who were traveling in stage-coaches and using oil-lamps that some day New York would blaze with light at midnight; that men would ask for succor in mid-ocean and that their message would be understood on land, that their flight in the air would surpa.s.s that of the eagle--our good forefathers would have smiled incredulously. Their imaginations would never have been able to conceive these things. To them, modern men would have seemed almost like men of another species.

This is because the imagination of modern men is based upon the positive researches of science, whereas the men of past ages allowed their minds to wander in the world of unreality.

This single fact has changed the face of the world.

When man loses himself in mere speculations, his environment will remain unchanged, but when imagination starts from contact with reality, thought begins to construct works by means of which the external world becomes transformed; almost as if the thought of man had a.s.sumed a marvelous power: the power to create.

It is thus we imagine the thought of G.o.d; all creation is the divine thought, which has the property of realizing itself. G.o.d thought: and behold! light, the order of creation, living things, appeared.

Modern man by the method of positive science seems to have found the secret trace of thought which puts him in the divine path, which gives him the revelation of his true nature, as indicated in the words of Scripture: "Let us make man in our image and likeness."

Thus human intelligence said: "Let there be light"--and there was a magic effulgence which comes and goes at a touch. "Let man fly in the air and rise far above all the birds of creation"--and it was so. "Let the voices of s.h.i.+pwrecked mariners travel mysteriously and without sound, and reach distant places"--and it was so. "Let things multiply, plants in their varieties, so that all men may have the means of life more abundantly"--and it was so.

The imagination has created when it has started from creation: that is, when it has first taken in existing truth. Only then has it accomplished marvelous things.

Like the tiny bird which hid under the wing of an eagle about to soar, and when it had been thus borne up to an immense height, disengaged itself from the eagle and began to fly still higher by its own efforts--so too is man, who at first holds fast to Nature, attaches himself to her by means of the most severe speculations, and with her soars aloft in search of truth; then he disengages himself from her, and his imagination creates over and above Nature herself. In this manner man seems to reflect divine attributes; the marvelous and miraculous issue from him in such grandiose form that the man of the past, the wren without the eagle, could not even have conceived it.

Original sin is an allegory of this eternal story, of the man _who wished to act for himself_, to subst.i.tute himself for G.o.d, to emanc.i.p.ate himself from Him, and to create. Whereupon he fell into impotence, slavery and misery.

The mind that works by itself, independently of truth, works in a void. Its creative power is a _means_ for working upon _reality_. But it confuses the means with the end, it is lost.

This kind of _sin_ of the intelligence, so akin to original sin, the sin of confounding the means with the end, recurs in every form as a "force of inertia" which pervades the psychical life. Thus man confounds the means, which is simpler, easier and more comprehensible, with the end in many of his functions. Thus, for example, when nutrition is made a pretext for gluttony, and the appet.i.te an end in itself, the body, instead of renewing itself in health and purity, is poisoned. Again, when in the reproduction of species the s.e.xual emotion becomes an end in itself rather than a means for the renewal of life, degeneration and sterility result. Man is guilty of a like sin against the intelligence when he employs his creative activity of thought for its own sake, without basing it upon truth; by so doing he creates an unreal world, full of error, and destroys the possibility of creating in reality, like a G.o.d, producing external works.

Thus positive science represents to us the "redemption" of thought; its purification from original sin, a return to the _natural laws_ of psychical energy. Scientists are like those men of the Bible story who, after Israel had come out of Egypt, were permitted to explore the Land of Promise, and who came back with such a huge cl.u.s.ter of grapes that it took two men to carry it, and the people saw it with amazement.

So have the scientists of to-day penetrated into the Promised Land of truth, where lies the secret which enables man to scrutinize Nature; and they have come out therefrom, bearing marvelous fruits for all men to see. The secret is a simple one: it consists of an exact method based on observation, prudence, and patience. All men might be allowed to share the secret, for indeed such virtues correspond to the "occult," intimate needs of their spiritual life.

It may be asked: Why should only explorers enter in, while the people remain outside, pa.s.sively enjoying the fruits of their labors?

Is it because the method of positive science, which puts man in the way of knowing the truth, of gathering up realities--and hence of building up his own imagination thereupon--is a monopoly, the privilege of the chosen few?

That method which denotes the redemption of the intelligence ought to be the method by which all new humanity is molded--the formative method of the new generation.

In the Bible story, the explorers were the messengers, and the witnesses to the existence of the Promised Land, into which the whole people was to enter. And so it is here: all men should come under the influence of the scientific method; and every child should be able to experiment at first hand, to observe, and to put himself in contact with reality. Thus the flights of the imagination will start from a higher plane henceforth, and the intelligence will be directed into its natural channels of creation.

=Truth is also the basis of artistic imagination=.--The work of the intelligence is not limited to the exact observation and the simple, logical reasoning upon which great scientific discoveries may be founded. There is a more exalted work, confronting which none can say, as in the presence of certain scientific discoveries; "I also might have been able to do this."

Dante, Milton, Goethe, Raphael, Wagner, are mighty mysteries, miracles of intelligence, which cannot be cla.s.sed with the simple processes of observation and reasoning. Nevertheless, every man has his share of artistic imagination, he has the instinct to create the beautiful with his mind; and from this instinct duly developed come all the vast treasures of art, scattered almost like crumbs of gold wherever there was an intensity of civil life, wherever the intelligence had time to mature in peace. In every province which has preserved traces of ancient peoples we find local artistic types of work, of furniture, of poetic songs and popular music. This multiform creation of the inner man, then, enfolds him and protects his spirit in its intellectual needs, just as the iridescent sh.e.l.l encloses the mollusc.

In addition to the work of observing material reality, there is a creative work which lifts man up from earth and transports him into a higher world which every soul may attain, within its individual limits.

Yet no one can say that man _creates_ artistic products out of nothing. What is called _creation_ is in reality a composition, a construction raised upon a _primitive material_ of the mind, which must be collected from the environment by means of the senses. This is the general principle summed up in the ancient axiom: _Nihil est in intellectu quod prius non fuerit in sensa_ (There is nothing in the intellect which was not first in the senses). We are unable to "imagine" things which do not actually present themselves to our senses; even language would be lacking to us to explain things lying beyond those customary limits by which our consciousness is bounded.

The imagination of Michelangelo was unable to picture G.o.d otherwise than as a venerable old man with a white beard. When we try to imagine the eternal torments of h.e.l.l, we talk of fire; we think of Paradise as a place of light. Those born blind and deaf can form no definite idea of sensations they have never been able to perceive. It is well known that persons blind from their birth imagine colors by comparing them to sounds: for instance, they imagine red as the sound of a trumpet, blue as the sweet music of the violin. The deaf, when they read descriptions of delicious music, imagine the cla.s.sic beauty of a painted picture. The temperaments of poets and artists are pre-eminently sensorial. And all the senses do not contribute in equal measure to give a type to the individual imagination; but certain senses are often predominant. Musicians are auditive, and are inclined to describe the world from the sounds it conveys to them; the warbling of the nightingale in the silence of a wood; the patter of the rain in the solitude of the country-side, may be as springs of inspiration for great musical composers; and some of them, describing a tract of country, will dwell only on its silences and noises. Others again, whose susceptibilities are predominantly visual, are impressed by the forms and colors of things. Or it may be the motion, the flexuosity, the impetus of things; the tactile impressions of softness and harshness, which make up the descriptive content of imaginative types in whom the tactile and muscular sensations predominate.

There are persons who have had non-sensorial impressions, and they are persons whose spiritual life was of very great intensity. They have _internal impressions_ which cannot be accounted fruits of the imagination, but must be accepted as realities simply perceived. That they are realities is affirmed not only by the introspection of normal subjects, but by the effect upon their internal personality. "The revelations vouchsafed by G.o.d," says Saint Teresa, "are distinguished by the great spiritual benefits with which they enrich the soul; they are accompanied by light, discernment, and wisdom." But if such persons wish to describe these impressions which do not penetrate by means of the senses, they are obliged to borrow the language of sensorial impression. "I heard a voice," says the Blessed Raymond of Capua, "which was not in the air, and which p.r.o.nounced words that reached my spirit, but not my ear; nevertheless I understood it more distinctly than if it had come to me from an external voice. I could not reproduce this voice, if I can call that a voice which had no sound. This voice formed words and presented them to my spirit." The Life of Saint Teresa abounds in similar descriptions, in which she tries to convey, by the inappropriate language of the senses, what she saw, not with her eyes, but with her soul.

The difference between these internal impressions, which occur in others as well as in saints (and certainly do not const.i.tute saintliness), and the hallucinations of the insane, is clearly marked.

In the madman, an excitement of the cerebral cortex reproduces old images deposited by the sensorial memory, which project themselves into the external world whence they were taken, with external sensorial characteristics; so that the sufferer really believes that he sees his phantasms with his actual eyes, and that he hears the voices which persecute him; he is the victim of a pathological condition; the whole personality reveals signs of his organic decadence, the concomitants of his psychical disintegration.

Setting aside, then, direct spiritual impressions of very rare occurrence, not to be looked upon even as aids to sanct.i.ty, impressions which may form suitable subjects of study for specialists such as teleologists or the members of the English Society of Psychical Research, but which do not enter into educational conceptions, there remains for our consideration but a single material of construction for intellectual activities: that of the senses.

Imagination can have only a sensory basis.

The sensory education which prepares for the accurate perception of all the differential details in the qualities of things, is therefore the foundation of the observation of things and of phenomena which present themselves to our senses; and with this it helps us to collect from the external world the material for the imagination.