The same is true of each part of the
machinery, as well as of the saw-mill or planing-mill considered as a
whole. Each of these objects, whether simple or complex, suggests
others similar which we have observed or seen represented in pictures.
Each part of the machinery in turn becomes the center of a set of
comparisons leading from the concrete object in question to the general
notion of the class to which it belongs. For example, the steam engine
in a mill is typical of all stationary engines used for driving
machinery. But the parts of the engine are also typical of similar
parts in other engines and machines, as the drive-wheel, cylinder,
boiler, etc.
In all these cases we become absorbed in one thing for a while, only to
recover ourselves and to reflect upon the thing in its wider relations,
either tracing out connections of cause and effect, as in a series of
machines, or passing from the single example to the class of which it
is typical. Absorption and reflection! The mind swings back and forth
like a pendulum between these two operations. Herbart, who closely
defined this process, called it the _mental act of breathing_, because
of the constancy of its movement.
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