This is not accurate; it is not clear whether the direction of the organs be the cause, or the effect, of attention; or whether it be only a concomitant of the sensation. Attention, we know, can be exercised upon abstract ideas; for this objection M. Condillac has afterwards a provisional clause, but the original definition remains defective, because the direction of the organs is not, though it be stated as such, essential: besides, we are told only, that the sensation described becomes (devient) what we call attention. What attention actually is, we are still left to discover. The matter is made yet more difficult; for when we are just fixed in the belief, that attention depends "upon our remarking one sensation, and not remarking others which we may have at the same time," we are in the next chapter given to understand, that "in comparison we may have a double attention, or two attentions, which are only two sensations, which make themselves be taken notice of equally, and consequently comparison consists only of sensations."[116]
The doctrine of simultaneous ideas here glides in, and we concede unawares all that is necessary to the abbé's favourite system, "that sensation becomes successively attention, memory, comparison, judgment, and reflection;[117] and that the art of reasoning is reducible to a series of identic propositions." Without, at present, attempting to examine this system, we may observe, that in education it is more necessary to preserve the mind from prejudice, than to prepare it for the adoption of any system. Those who have attended to metaphysical proceedings, know, that if a few apparently trifling concessions be made in the beginning of the business, a man of ingenuity may force us, in the end, to acknowledge whatever he pleases. It is impossible that a child can foresee these consequences, nor is it probable that he should have paid such accurate attention to the operations of his own mind, as to be able to detect the fallacy, or to feel the truth, of his tutor's assertions. A metaphysical catechism may readily be taught to children; they may learn to answer almost as readily as Trenck answered in his sleep to the guards who regularly called to him every night at midnight. Children may answer expertly to the questions, "What is attention? What is memory? What is imagination? What is the difference between wit and judgment? How many sorts of ideas have you, and which are they?" But when they are perfect in their responses to all these questions, how much are they advanced in real knowledge?
Allegory has mixed with metaphysics almost as much as with poetry; personifications of memory and imagination are familiar to us; to each have been addressed odes and sonnets, so that we almost believe in their individual existence, or at least we are become jealous of the separate attributes of these ideal beings. This metaphysical mythology may be ingenious and elegant, but it is better adapted to the pleasures of poetry than to the purposes of reasoning. Those who have been accustomed to respect and believe in it, will find it difficult soberly to examine any argument upon abstract subjects; their favourite prejudices will retard them when they attempt to advance in the art of reasoning. All accurate metaphysical reasoners have perceived, and deplored, the difficulties which the prepossessions of education have thrown in their way; and they have been obliged to waste their time and powers in fruitless attempts to vanquish these in their own minds, or in those of their readers. Can we wish in education to perpetuate similar errors, and to transmit to another generation the same artificial imbecility? Or can we avoid these evils, if with our present habits of thinking and speaking, we attempt to teach metaphysics to children of seven years old?
A well educated, intelligent young man, accustomed to accurate reasoning, yet brought up without any metaphysical prejudices, would be a treasure to a metaphysician to cross examine: he would be eager to hear the unprejudiced youth's evidence, as the monarch, who had ordered a child to be shut up, without hearing one word of any human language, from infancy to manhood, was impatient to hear what would be the first word that he uttered. But though we wish extremely well to the experiments of metaphysicians, we are more intent upon the advantage which our unprejudiced pupils would themselves derive from their judicious education: probably they would, coming fresh to the subject, make some discoveries in the science of metaphysics: they would have no paces[118] to show; perhaps they might advance a step or two on this difficult ground.
When we object to the early initiation of novices into metaphysical mysteries, we only recommend it to preceptors not to teach; let pupils learn whatever they please, or whatever they can, without reading any metaphysical books, and without hearing any opinions, or learning any definitions by rote; children may reflect upon their own feelings, and they should be encouraged to make accurate observations upon their own minds. Sensible children will soon, for instance, observe the effect of habit, which enables them to repeat actions with ease and facility, which they have frequently performed. The association of ideas, as it assists them to remember particular things, will soon be noticed, though not, perhaps, in scientific words. The use of the association of pain or pleasure, in the form of what we call reward and punishment, may probably be early perceived. Children will be delighted with these discoveries if they are suffered to make them, and they will apply this knowledge in their own education. Trifling daily events will recall their observations, and experience will confirm, or correct, their juvenile theories. But if metaphysical books, or dogmas, are forced upon children in the form of lessons, they will, as such, be learned by rote, and forgotten.
To prevent parents from expecting as much as the abbé Condillac does from the comprehension of pupils of six or seven years old upon abstract subjects, and to enable preceptors to form some idea of the perfect simplicity in which children, unprejudiced upon metaphysical questions, would express themselves, we give the following little dialogues, word for word, as they passed:
1780. Father. Where do you think?
A——. (Six and a half years old.) In my mouth.
Ho——. (Five years and a half old.) In my stomach.