If he does not rise to the task of reforming himself in harmony with the new world he has created, he runs the risk of being some day overthrown and crushed by it.
The swift reactions occurring among our children are not merely an external manifestation of the intelligence. They are related not only to the exercise, but also to the order which has been established within: and it is this intimate work of rearrangement which is in itself a more exact indication of intellectual formation.
Order is, in short, the true key to rapidity of reaction. In a chaotic mind, the recognition of a sensation is no less difficult than the elaboration of a reasoned discourse. In all things, social as well as others, it is organization and order which make it possible to proceed rapidly.
"To be able to distinguish" is the characteristic sign of intelligence: to distinguish is to arrange and also, in life, it is to prepare for "creation."
Creation finds its expansion in order. We find this conception in the Genesis of Scripture. God did not begin to create without preparation; and this preparation was the introduction of order into chaos. "And God divided the light from the darkness. And he said: Let the waters be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear." The consciousness may possess a rich and varied content; but when there is mental confusion, the intelligence does not appear. Its appearance is exactly like the kindling of a light which makes it possible to distinguish things clearly: "Let there be light."
Thus we may justly say that to help the development of the intelligence is to help to put the images of the consciousness in order.
We ought to think of the mental state of the little child of three years old, who has already looked upon a world. How often he has fallen asleep utterly weary from having seen so many things. It has not occurred to any one that for him to walk is, in fact, to work; that seeing and hearing, when the organs are not as yet accommodated, so that he is obliged to be perpetually correcting the errors of his senses, and verifying with his hand what he cannot as yet appraise correctly with his eye, is a great exertion. Hence the little one who is over-taxed by stimuli, in places where these abound, cries or falls asleep.
The little child of three years old carries within him a heavy chaos.
He is like a man who has accumulated an immense quantity of books, piled up without any order, and who asks himself "What shall I do with them?" When will he be able to arrange them in such fashion as to enable him to say: "I possess a library"?