under
Sense and the routine of habitual inferences. They are unable to free
themselves from the importunities of the apparent facts and apparent
relations which solicit their attention; and when they make room for
unapparent facts it is only for those which are familiar to their
minds. Hence they can see little more than what they have been taught
to see; they can only think what they have been taught to think. For
independent vision, and original conception, we must go to children and
men of genius. The spontaneity of the one is the power of the other.
Ordinary men live among marvels and feel no wonder, grow familiar with
objects and learn nothing new about them. Then comes an independent
mind which sees; and it surprises us to find how servile we have been
to habit and opinion, how blind to what we also might have seen, had we
used our eyes. The link, so long hidden, has now been made visible to
us. We hasten to make it visible to others. But the flash of light
which revealed that obscured object does not help us to discover
others. Darkness still conceals much that we do not even suspect. We
continue our routine. We always think our views correct and complete;
if we thought otherwise they would cease to be our views; and when the
man of keener insight discloses our error, and reveals relations
hitherto unsuspected, we learn to see with his eyes and exclaim: "Now
surely we have got the truth."

III.

A child is playing with a piece of paper and brings it near the flame
of a candle; another child looks on. Both are completely absorbed by
the objects, both are ignorant or oblivious of the relation between the
combustible object and the flame: a relation which becomes apparent
only when the paper is alight. What is called the thoughtlessness of
childhood prevents their seeing this unapparent fact; it is a fact
which has not been sufficiently impressed upon their experience so as
to form an indissoluble element in their conception of the two in
juxtaposition. Whereas in the mind of the nurse this relation is so
vividly impressed that no sooner does the paper approach the flame than
the unapparent fact becomes almost as visible as the objects, and a
warning is given. She sees what the children do not, or cannot see. It
has become part of her organised experience.

The superiority of one mind over another depends on the rapidity with
which experiences are thus organised. The superiority may be general or
special: it may