Jacobs wished for enquiries into every
kind of intelligence ordinary and extraordinary; out of all
ingredients of character, out of early impressions, out of classified
emotions to build up an answer to the question: "Is there a science
of mind?" Since he wrote, much has been done in experiment by the
scientific. Children's minds are constantly being investigated, and
the results given to the public. Mr. Galton has to some extent
popularised this sort of investigation. But it is still generally
unpopular. Novelists, and artists, leisured people, women, everyone
could be of use, if they would investigate themselves, or offer their
minds for investigation. But after all that the scientific French,
German, American, Italian, and English workers have done, we are as
yet only on the threshold of mind knowledge--of what we might know--if
we had ardour enough to push self-analysis in to the remotest corner
of the brain, noting down, comparing, tabulating the most involuntary
and ethereal sublimities that appear to flit through the mind, the
most subtle emotion that hardly finds expression in language. We must
push on and on till we arrive at the knowledge of a mind science. Our
scientific enquirers want, as we all do, more ardour, they are dulled
by a cold, uninterested public.
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