Practical Essays

Practical Essays

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Title: Practical Essays
Author: Alexander Bain
Release Date: January 23, 2006 [EBook #17522]
Language: English
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PRACTICAL ESSAYS ***

Produced by Marc D'Hooghe.
From images generously made available by Gallica (Bibliothèque
Nationale de France) at http://gallica.bnf.fr.

PRACTICAL ESSAYS.
by

ALEXANDER BAIN, LL.D.,
EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF LOGIC IN THE UNIVERSITY OF
ABERDEEN.
LONDON:
1884.

PREFACE.
The present volume is in great part a reprint of articles contributed to
Reviews. The principal bond of union among them is their practical
character. Beyond that, there is little to connect them apart from the
individuality of the author and the range of his studies.
That there is a certain amount of novelty in the various suggestions
here embodied, will be admitted on the most cursory perusal. The
farther question of their worth is necessarily left open.
The first two essays are applications of the laws of mind to some
prevailing Errors.
The next two have an educational bearing: the one is on the subjects
proper for Competitive Examinations; the other, on the present position
of the much vexed Classical controversy.
The fifth considers the range of Philosophical or Metaphysical Study,
and the mode of conducting this study in Debating Societies.
The sixth contains a retrospect of the growth of the Universities, with
more especial reference to those of Scotland; and also a discussion of
the University Ideal, as something more than professional teaching.
The seventh is a chapter omitted from the author's "Science of
Education"; it is mainly devoted to the methods of self-education by
means of books. The situation thus assumed has peculiarities that admit

of being handled apart from the general theory of Education.
The eighth contends for the extension of liberty of thought, as regards
Sectarian Creeds and Subscription to Articles. The total emancipation
of the clerical body from the thraldom of subscription, is here
advocated without reservation.
The concluding essay discusses the Procedure of Deliberative Bodies.
Its novelty lies chiefly in proposing to carry out, more thoroughly than
has yet been done, a few devices already familiar. But for an
extraordinary reluctance in all quarters to adapt simple and obvious
remedies to a growing evil, the article need never have appeared. It so
happens, that the case principally before the public mind at present, is
the deadlock in the House of Commons; yet, had that stood alone, the
author would not have ventured to meddle with the subject. The
difficulty, however, is widely felt: and the principles here put forward
are perfectly general; being applicable wherever deliberative bodies are
numerously constituted and heavily laden with business.
ABERDEEN, March, 1884.

CONTENTS.
I.
COMMON ERRORS ON THE MIND.
Error regarding Mind as a whole--that Mind can be exerted without
bodily expenditure.
Errors with regard to the FEELINGS.
I. Advice to take on cheerfulness.
Authorities for this prescription.
Presumptions against our ability to comply with it.

Concurrence of the cheerful temperament with youth and health.
With special corporeal vigour. With absence of care and anxiety.
Limitation of Force applies to the mind.
The only means of rescuing from dulness--to increase the supports and
diminish the burdens of life.
Difficulties In the choice of amusements
II. Prescribing certain tastes, or pursuits, to persons indiscriminately.
Tastes must repose as natural endowment, or else in prolonged
education.
III. Inverted relationship of Feelings and Imagination.
Imagination does not determine Feeling, but the reverse.
Examples:--Bacon, Shelley, Byron, Burke, Chalmers, the Orientals, the
Chinese, the Celt, and the Saxon.
IV. Fallaciousness of the view, that happiness is best gained by not
being aimed at.
Seemingly a self-contradiction.
Butler's view of the disinterestedness of Appetite.
Apart from pleasure and pain, Appetite would not move us.
Parallel from other ends of pursuit--Health.
Life has two aims--Happiness and Virtue--each to be sought directly on
its own account.
Errors connected with the WILL.

I. Cost of energy, of Will. Need of a suitable physical confirmation.
Courage, Prudence, Belief.
II. Free-will a centre of various fallacies.
Doctrines repudiated from the offence given to personal dignity.
Operation of this on the history of Free-will.
III. Departing from the usual rendering of a fact, treated as denying the
fact.
Metaphysical and Ethical examples.
Alliance of Mind and Matter.
Perception of a Material World.
IV. The terms Freedom and Necessity miss the real point of the human
will.
V. Moral Ability and Inability.--Fallacy of seizing a question by the
wrong end.
Proper signification of Moral Inability--insufficiency of the ordinary
motives,