d scenes in nature, of historical events and
characters, and of spiritual beings is obtained.

=Imagination Gives Basis for Generalization.=--It should be noted by the
student-teacher that in many lessons we aim to give the child a notion
of a class of objects, though he may in actual experience never have
met any representatives of the class. In geography, for instance, the
child learns of deserts, volcanoes, etc., without having experienced
these objects through the senses. It has been seen, however, that our
general knowledge always develops from particular experience. For this
reason the pupil who has never seen a volcano, in order to gain a
general notion of a volcano, must first, by an act of constructive
imagination, image a definite picture of a particular volcano. The
importance of using in such a lesson a picture or a representation on a
sand-board, lies in the fact that this furnishes the necessary stimulus
to the child's imagination, which will cause him to image a particular
individual as a basis for the required general, or class, notion. Too
often, however, the child is expected in such lessons to form the class
notion directly, that is, without the intervention of a particular
experience. This question will be considered more fully in Chapter
XXVII, which treats of the process of imagination.

C. LEARNING BY INFERENCE, OR DEDUCTION

Instead of placing himself in British Columbia, and noting by actual
experience that there is a large rainfall there, a person may discover
the same by what is called a process of inference. For example, one may
have learned from an examination of other particular instances that air
takes up moisture in passing over water; that warm air absorbs large
quantities of moisture; that air becomes cool as it rises; and that
warm, moist air deposits its moisture as rain when it is cooled. Knowing
this and knowing a number of particular facts about British Columbia,
namely that warm winds pass over it from the Pacific and must rise owing
to the presence of mountains, we may infer of British Columbia that it
has an abundant rainfall. When we thus discover a truth in relation to
any particular thing by inference, we are said to go through a process
of deduction. A more particular study of this process will be made in
Chapter XXVIII, but certain facts may here be noted in reference to the
process as a mode of acquiring knowledge. An examination will show that
the deductive process fo