How can one seriously think of making of the child a little psychologist, and of choosing as the first element of his education the very science that is the most difficult of all, the one which can be but the coronation of his studies?
341. Must we reason with Children?—Rousseau had sharply criticised the famous maxim of Locke: “We must reason with children.” Condillac tries to restore it to credit, and for this purpose he invokes the pretended demonstrations of a superficial and inexact psychology.
“It has been proved,” he says, “that the faculty of reasoning begins as soon as the senses commence to develop; and we have the early use of our senses only because we early began to reason.” Strange assertions, which are disproved by the most elementary observation of the facts in the case. Condillac here allows himself to be imposed upon by his sensational psychology, the tendency of which is to efface the peculiar character of the different intellectual faculties, to derive them all from the senses, and, consequently, to suppress the distance which separates a simple sensation from the subtile, reflective, and abstract process which is called reasoning. It cannot be admitted for a single instant that the faculties of the understanding are, as he says, “the same in the child as in the mature man.” There is, doubtless, in the child a beginning of reasoning, a sort of instinctive logic; but this infantile reasoning can be applied only to familiar objects, such as are sensible and concrete. It were absurd to employ it on general and abstract ideas.
342. Preliminary Lessons.—We shall quote, without comment, the first subjects of instruction which, under the title of Leçons préliminaires, Condillac proposes to his pupil: 1. the nature of ideas; 2. the operations of the soul; 3. the habits; 4. the difference between the soul and the body; 5. the knowledge of God.
How are we to conceive that Condillac had the pretension to place these high philosophical speculations within the reach of a child of seven years who has not yet studied the grammar of his native language! How much better some fables or historical narratives would answer his purpose!
But Condillac does not stop there. When his pupil has a systematic knowledge of the operations of the soul, when he has comprehended the genesis of ideas; in a word, when, towards the age of eight or ten, he is as proficient in philosophy as his master, and almost as capable of writing the Treatise on Sensations, what do you think he is invited to study? Something which very much resembles the philosophy of history:—
“After having made him reflect on his own infancy, I thought that the infancy of the world would be the most interesting subject for him, and the easiest to study.”
343. The Art of Thinking.—It is only when he judges that the mind of his pupil is sufficiently prepared by psychological analysis and by general reflections on the progress of humanity, that Condillac decides to have him enter upon the ordinary course of study. Here the spirit of system disappears, and gives place to more judicious and more practical ideas. Thus Condillac thinks that “the study of grammar would be more wearisome than useful if it come too early.” Would that he had applied this principle to psychology! Before studying grammar, then, Condillac’s pupil reads the poets,—the French poets, of course,—and preferably the dramatic authors, Racine especially, whom he reads for the twelfth time. The real knowledge of the language precedes the abstract study of the rules. Condillac himself composed a grammar entitled the Art of Speaking. In this he imitates the authors of Port Royal, “who,” he says, “were the first to write elementary books on an intelligent plan.” After the Art of Speaking he calls the attention of his pupil to three other treatises in succession,—the Art of Writing, or rhetoric, the Art of Reasoning, or logic, and the Art of Thinking. We shall not attempt an analysis of these works, which have gone out of date, notwithstanding the value of certain portions of them. The general characteristic of these treatises on intellectual education is that the author is pre-occupied with the relations of ideas more than with the exterior elegancies of style, with the development of thought more than with the beauties of language:—
“Especially must the intelligence be nourished, even as the body is nourished. We must present to it knowledge, which is the wholesome aliment of spirit, opinions and errors being aliment that is poisonous. It is also necessary that the intelligence be active, for the thought remains imbecile as long as, passive rather than active, it moves at random.”
344. Other Parts of the Course of Study.—It seems that Condillac is in pursuit of but one single purpose,—to make of his pupil a thinking being. The study of Latin is postponed till the time when the intelligence, being completely formed, will find in the study of that language only the difficulty of learning words. Condillac has but little taste for the study of the ancient languages. He relegates the study of Latin to the second place, and omits Greek entirely. But he accords a great importance to historical studies.