verted to.
It arises from the circumstance, that no person, whether young or old,
can form, even in his imagination, the idea of an entirely new thing.
This is commonly illustrated by the well known fact, that it is
impossible to conceive of a new sense;--but it is equally applicable to
the conception of a new object. Adults can no doubt conceive and picture
on their imaginations, objects and scenes which they never saw;--but
this mental act is not the imagining of an entirely new thing. All such
scenes or things are compounded of objects, or parts of objects, which
they have seen, and with which they are familiar. They can readily
picture to themselves a centaur or a cerberus, a mermaid or a
dragon,--creatures which have no existence, and which never did exist;
but a little reflection will shew, that nothing which the mind conceives
of these supposed animals is really new, but is merely a new combination
of elements, or parts of other animals, already familiar. Children
accordingly can easily conceive the idea of a giant or a dwarf, a woman
without a head, or a man with two, because the elements of which these
anomalies are compounded are individually familiar to them;--but were
they told of a person sitting in a howdah, or being conveyed in a
palanquin, without having these objects previously explained or
described to them, the mind would either be drawn from the story to find
out what these meant, and thus they would lose it; or they would, on the
spur of the moment, substitute in their minds something else which
perhaps had no likeness to them, and which would lead them into serious
error. For example, they might suppose that the one was a house, and the
other a ship;--a supposition which would distort the whole narrative,
and would render many of its parts inconsistent and incomprehensible.

As adults then, in every similar case, are under the necessity of
drawing materials from their general knowledge, for the purpose of
compounding all such unknown objects, it must be much more difficult for
a child to do this, not only because of his want of ability, but his
want of materials. The remedy therefore in this case is, to explain and
describe the objects that are to be grouped, before the pupil be called
upon to do so. And when the object has not been seen by the child, and
cannot be exhibited by a picture, or otherwise, the teacher must exert
his ingenuity in enabling him to form an idea of the thing that is
unknown