intellectual faculty, it would seem that the more there were of it the better. Is it as high already as it is possible for it to rise? If not, is it possible to raise it higher by any artificial means? These questions may be answered separately.

The great length to which the inventive spirit has actually been carried, the number of individuals who are devoting themselves to invention, and the multitude of attempts that are yearly made to utilize some new principle or improve upon some mechanism already discovered, as shown by the models submitted for patent in the enlightened nations of the world, give the general impression that the inventive spirit is as active as it need be for the healthy development of the mechanical arts. The fact that the love of invention becomes with many a ruling passion, and that, as with all useful mental qualities, it sometimes runs to extremes, as seen in Keely motors and devices to secure perpetual motion all this tends to strengthen the common belief that this faculty at least can maintain itself without any effort on the part of society, A little reflection, however, should make it apparent that these facts are really only so many arguments for the systematic training of the inventive faculty. Its great intensity argues for checks, regulation, broadening, and deepening. The number of inoperative mechanisms and preoccupied principles for which patents are sought, proves the need of wider information on the part of the public relative to all such matters. The attempts to apply imaginary principles show that knowledge is as pecessary to successful invention as zeal in its prosecution.

(Granting that the inventive spirit is as strong as it needs to be, granting that no form of education could act directly to increase the native supply of inventive genius in any individual, and that this is a matter of heredity alone, there still remains the argument that this talent, like every other, is likely to remain forever dormant unless called out by some combination of external circumstances. Education properly understood is little more, at best, than the creation of an artificial

environment calculated to call into exercise all the latent talents' of those who receive it. The number manifesting this kind of genius may, therefore, be greatly increased through a form of education which should be really adapted to calling it forth.

It may be said that this would simply multiply the number of models and flood the world with machines that could not be used. This objection suggests the main argument for the education of the inventive faculty/ Civilization has really advanced in exact proportion to the extent to which society was prepared to employ the arts brought out by the inventive genius of a small proportion of its members. This is no measure of the degree of art that it would have been possible to attain. In other words the advance has been in proportion to the demand which is no measure of the possible supply. The latter, it would seem, will always equal the former no matter how great it may be. The fact that modern civilization employs many thousand times as much art as ancient society employed, and continues to employ more and more, shows that there is no necessary limit to the extent to which inventive genius may benefit mankind. The way to bring this about is to increase the demand, that is, to increase the capacity of society for receiving and appreciating these benefits. It is not the inventor who needs educating but the user of his inventions, i. e., the general public As a matter of fact, while inventors are indeed rare, those who are really qualified to use inventions are also rare. It is astonishing to note how few persons have any idea of the nature of any mechanism at all complicated. When fountain pens were first invented many of my friends obtained them and endeavored to use them, but I know of none who did not soon discard them because the few directions necessary to keep them in order were too intricate or too troublesome to follow. They gave no thought to the principle involved in the mechanism and could not see why they might not as well be kept one end up as the other.1

1 I am writing this with one of the old-fashioned ones that I have used every day for fifteen years.

Every one knows how difficult it is to make servants attend to any but the simplest utensils, and housewives are as a rule equally ignorant of such matters. Wherever there is a furnace or any other of the modern kinds of heater in a house, it is found necessary for some person of judgment and intelligence to take its management in charge. The female sex, as previously shown, is especially deficient in this form of perspicacity. I have recently seen a lady with a letter in her hand approach a letter box, on the lid of which was plainly stamped in relief letters the words "pull down," and after going several times round it and doing everything but the right one, finally go away and give her letter to a drug store clerk to mail for her.1

Not only can there be little progress in the arts of civilization while the mass of mankind has so little power to appreciate or ability to employ them, but the progress that takes place is an awkward and unnatural one. The public is constantly using what it does not understand, involving a vast amount of destruction and waste, and making society dependent upon a few experts. What is not understood cannot be properly used, and condemnation and complaint are followed by rejection, whereby the demand is lowered. Old-fashioned and laborious. methods are preferred to modern rapid and labor-saving devices. In these and a thousand other ways society is kept from advancing by popular ignorance of the underlying principles of art. The worst of all perhaps is the ignorance of mechanics themselves. They only know exactly what they are taught while learning their trades and the least thing out of the beaten track confounds them completely. It is, for example, almost impossible for any one who has ideas of his own to have a house built in conformity with his ideas. The workmen will have "never heard of such a thing," will object and prevari

1 An unreflected light did never yet

Dazzle the vision feminine.

Sir Henry Taylor: Philip Van Artevelde, Part I, Act i, Scene 5.

cate, and cause unlimited trouble rather than swerve a hair from some fixed rule of thumb that makes every house an exact copy of every other. But there would be no end if it were sought to present all the examples that occur to the mind. whenever the subject is before it.1

Even if it be objected that the mind cannot be trained to invent, it at least cannot be denied that the mechanical principles on which all the most common contrivances, machines, and artificial objects generally, which are in daily use are constructed, may be explained and really taught to every pupil of either sex. It may be that much of it would be transient in the minds of many. This is true of all things. But much would abide and bear fruit in later years, while object lessons of this class would be less likely to be forgotten than almost anything else in education. The recent movement in the direction of manual training is the result of a growing recognition of the need of knowing how as well as merely knowing what. The pitiful helplessness of city-bred persons when thrown into contact with nature has long been manifest, as well as the fact that the best minds in every department are those that have imbibed from an early rural life, however Arcadian, some knowledge of nature's ways, which later stands them in as an aid to success. It would be an easy and natural adjunct to a system of manual training to make it include full and thorough instruction in the mechanical principles of most great inventions and also of those most familiar to the pupil. But beyond this it must be maintained that the mind can be trained to look for utilities, instructed to be ever on the alert for practical principles and effective adjustments calculated to utilize natural forces, qualities, and objects, to set the inventive faculty to work, and thereby, virtually if not literally, increase, develop, and stimulate the inventive genius of man.

1 Mr. Herbert Spencer has given a number of other good examples in his Study of Sociology, pp. 304-305.

CHAPTER XXX.

CREATIVE GENIUS.

The love of the beautiful, both in sight and sound, has ever been and ever must be a reliable social force, ready to manifest its power on every occasion, whenever the great vital demands of existence cease to absorb the energies of society. In proportion as man's physical wants are supplied, and his social and sexual relations placed upon a natural and satisfactory footing, the practical arts, the industrial character, and the cold business features of human life will be relieved, subdued, and embellished by the softening and cheering presence of works of art, and by the perpetual charm of music and poetry. — Dynamic Sociology, I, 674.

The eye of the intellect sees in all objects what it brought with it the means of seeing. CARLYLE.

In Part I,was considered, from the standpoint of its origin and genesis, the great primary psychic trunk the feelings — with its roots far down in the bathybian ooze of organic life. Thus far, in Part II, attention has been confined to the principal secondary trunk or dominant branch — the intuitive intellect which began to diverge from the main trunk coincidently with the appearance of the highest insects and the earliest birds and mammals, near the beginning of Cenozoic or Tertiary time. This great branch, as has been seen, was twofold, though not bifurcate or divergent, and may be figuratively represented as double, or consisting of two approximate or contiguous complementary trunks, an active, positive, and progressive male trunk, representing biological variation and adaptation, and a passive, negative, and conservative female trunk, representing heredity. The active trunk assumed the several forms described as intuitive perception, intuitive reason, and the inventive faculty; the passive trunk consists of the intuitive judgment typified by female