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Untitled Article
slower advance in physical science , than if I had given them what is called a lecture on natural philosophy ; just , as I should consider such an audience in a way to make a sounder , though apparently a slower progress in moral knowledge , if I had drawn their attention first to a few scenes in Shakspeare or Scott , Edgeworth or Martineau , and then to a clear statement of the principles therein developed , and to the common exemplification of such principles in every day life , than if I had read them an essay on some intellectual , or moral , or political principle :
If we could see into the minds of many country-town audiences , not to extend the remark further , we should find them wearied with numerous and complicated experiments . We should discover that the mind had been perplexed , as much as the eyes had been dazzled , by rapid and brilliant evolutions of metal and glass , instead of having been enabled to comprehend and apply principles . Lastly , we shall find many , whose minds are
accustomed to physical language , remembering , and reasoning on , physical phenomena , rather by means of words and their ideas than by a distinct recollection of the objects of sight . I well remember the difficulty I experienced in passing from a discipline of learning to a discipline of science , to remember objects of sight ; and it delights me to hear a physical student say , ' I can remember what I see . '
The above remarks , which are , I am convinced , important to be attended to by a physical lecturer in a small country-town , are admirably exemplified in the delightful volumes of Dr . Arnott . Following the plain method of Ferguson , in his common sense mode of teaching , and in rejecting as much as possible the use of technical formulas , Dr . Arnott has given to his work
a variety of illustration , a depth of feeling , and a spirit of composition , which render his volumes eminently delightful . How far a mind quickened and strengthened by such a discipline may be enabled and induced to pass forward into the synthetical demonstrations of mathematics and the analytic solutions of
algebra , from which , if offered before it had been prepared to estimate the usefulness of the abstractions of lines and the perplexities of numbers , it would have turned away in disgust , is a question equally interesting to the metaphysician and to the mathematician , —to him who studies the nature of the
instrument , and to him who would employ it to the best advantage . Let us now suppose ourselves to have succeeded not only in establishing evening readings , but in introducing at each of them a certain quantity of experimental philosophy ; and let us pause to review our work . Is it not a wonderful and an encouraging fact , a cause not for congratulation only , but for gratitude , that the human mind , which in a state of ignorance and apathy is but ft capacious vacuum , capable indeed of containing many things
Untitled Article
276 The Diffusion of Knowledge amongst the People .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1834, page 276, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2632/page/44/
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