Civilisation: Its Cause and Cure; and Other Essays

[31] Thus the study of Geometry would be primarily an education of the eye, and the mind's eye, to the perception of geometrical forms and facts, the judgment of angles, etc.—and secondarily only a process of deductive reasoning—a body of empirical knowledge strengthened and tied together by bands of logic; the study of Natural History would be primarily an affectionate intimacy with the habits of animals and plants, and classification would be treated as a secondary matter and as a help to the former; Physiology would be studied in the first place by the method of Health—the pure body—becoming gradually transparent with all its organs to the eye of the mind—and dissection would be used to corroborate and correct the results thus attained; and so on.

[32] Compare the Sphinx-riddle: What is that which goes on four legs, etc.

[33] See for continuation of this subject the chapter on "A Rational and Humane Science," p. 219 infra.