s. But these acquired ends
or interests are not something created out of nothing: they are grafted
upon and arise out of the innate and inherited instinctive tendencies of
man's nature. Thus, _e.g._, the instinct of mere self-preservation may
pass into the desire to attain a certain standard of life, or to
maintain a certain social status; the instinct of curiosity into the
desire to find out and to systematise knowledge for its own sake. But
for the realisation of these instinctive ends, whether in their crude or
acquired forms, the finding and the establishment of systems of means in
every case is necessary, and in order that they may be realised man must
acquire the requisite capacities for action. In the case of the animal
the instinct or impulse to action is inherited, but the capacity for
action is also inborn or innate. Man possesses all the innate ends or
interests which the animal possesses. Moreover, upon these innate ends
or interests can be grafted ends or interests innumerable and varied in
character, but in order that they may be satisfied he must through the
evoking into activity of reason find and adapt means for their
attainment. Thus the general nature of our conscious human life is that
throughout we are striving to attain ends of a more or less explicit
nature, and endeavouring to find out and to establish means for their
attainment. Whether in the performance of some simple, practical act, or
in trying to observe accurately what is presented to us through the
senses, or in endeavouring to realise imaginatively something not
directly presented to the senses, or in performing an abstract process
of thought, the activity of reason in its formal aspect is ever one and
the same. Hence in education we have not to do with the development of
many powers or faculties but with the development or the evolution of
the one power or faculty of reason, and the process of development in
its general nature is always the same in kind--viz., the process of
systematically building up knowledge which shall function in the future
determination of conduct. What varies in each case, at each stage of
development, is the nature of the material which goes to form this or
that system, and the character of the identity or link of connection
which binds part to part within any given system. A system of knowledge
may be built up of perceptual elements, of ideas derived directly
through the medium of the senses. Of such a character