Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. SPECIAL METHOD. The clearest idea as to the nature of method arises, probably, from an examination of the process in a particular act of learning. The general aspect of this appears as the fundamental movement of consciousness. This fundamental movement is essentially three-fold, but it may be viewed as consisting of four phases, inasmuch as iteration, resulting in instinctive habit may close the three-fold movement. The process is not, however, four acts ; it is a united activity consisting of three pMses and a repetition of these. The four aspects of the process of learning are : 1. Becoming aware of the object being studied as an un- differentiated unity. In this phase the mind apprehends the distinctions belonging to the object dimly, in the form of feeling, as it were. The truth of the object is present to the mind as a mere presentiment. This any one can discover by examinining with care the state of mind belonging to him when first giving attention to any strange object. 2. Knowing clearly the distinctions in the object, regarding each one as isolated. As the first was the state of immediacy, the paradisaical condition of undisturbed harmony, so this second phase is the stage of negation ; of limit; of determinations. In the first a dim synthesis was made. In this clear analysis appears. The mind has passed from the simple state of paradise into that of discord, opposition, difference. The self In regard to presentiment as a first phase in knowledge, see Dewey's Psychology, PP- 306-307- being essentially a unity is, therefore, dissatisfied with this diversity, and hence seeks unity—not, however, the undisturbed unity of the first phase. 3. Discriminating the isolated elements, inferring the dominant characteristic and organizing all th...