EDWARD B. Conscience is my proof. I feel when I do right and wrong, and that is my soul. Lucy. I have proof, but I cannot express it. EMMA. I knew before I was asked.

MR. ALCOTT. It is a sentiment with you and Lucy. JOSIAH. Self-government.*

EDWARD J. Conscience.

(Some other answers were repetitious.)

* The reader may be struck with the fact of a child of six years of age giving self-government, as a proof of the existence of spirit independent of matter.

own.

This boy undoubtedly owes much to nature, but the measure cannot easily be determined, because his education, thus far, had been admirable. I refer to the training of the mind and moral nature, and to nothing more outward; for he was not SO much advanced as many others in the mechanical faculty of reading and writing; he was backward in arithmetic, and in those things in which there is often a very deceptive precocity; and, in general, he evinced no extraordinary ardor to acquire. He had always been exclusively under the instruction of his mother, whose principles and methods, as far as Mr. Alcott has been able to discover, were singularly in unison with his His eye had been educated by pictures; his mind cultivated by self-inspection, and conscientious stimulus, and his taste for beauty met and sympathised with. His mother had read to him a great deal, and taught him the use of words by conversation with herself, in which he peculiarly delighted, but which he could not enjoy much, except with the grown up and the gentle, on account of a natural impediment in his speech. It is also worthy of remark, that the only books, which he had ever been induced to read by himself, were Gallaudet's Books of the Soul, in which, in fact, he learned to read. He had, however, in his memory a good deal of poetry, learned by rote, and he was in the habit of dictating, himself, a sort of measured, unrhymed composition which he called poetry, the subject of which was generally the beauty of nature, and which always expressed religious feeling. REC.

MR. ALCOTT. which is not body.

Testimony of the External

Senses.

So you all think there is something,

But have you seen it; who has seen conscience?

(All made the negative sign.)

Then your eyes, it seems, did not tell you of this being, which is not body.

(All shook their heads.)

Nor your ears?

GEORGE K. I have heard my father and mother talk about conscience with my ears, and so I believed it was.

*This child had been in the school a year, without often speaking. Evidently unused to having his intellect addressed, he had only been remarkable for his faithfulness, and the expression of sentiment, that glowed in his face, whenever an interesting subject was under discussion. He was always very attentive, yet when Mr. Alcott asked him a question that required words in answer, all his soul flew into his face, but he was dumb; and Mr. Alcott would generally say, well, it is no matter, I see how you feel; to which the child would reply, with a look of gratitude. It was evident that his mind was not idle; for he constantly seemed full of attention, and intelligence, and he always expressed himself by a silent vote, when a question was to be answered by raising the hand. From this day, in which his tongue was for the first time loosed, he became one of our most ready speakers, and in some departments of thought was always remarkably lucid.

I have been thus particular, because I think that, in this instance, Mr. Alcott's sagacity is strikingly proved, and his example of patient waiting is worthy of consideration. If George's parents had felt the uneasy ambition of seeing immediate effects produced; and thus lost their confidence in Mr. Alcott, as many others have done, because he would not force a mind, whose progress was real in its own way; he would not have come the second year, but have carried into another school the flower of the seed Mr. Alcott had planted; - a thing which has not unfrequently been done, as Mr. Alcott has painfully felt. REC.

MR. ALCOTT. What believed? your ears? or was it the conscience within you that understood what your father and mother meant by conscience?

GEORGE K. Yes, that was the way. But our ears do a little good.

MR. ALCOTT. Yes, the spirit uses the organs of sense, though it is something else than these organs. (See Note 2.)

EDWARD B. It only seems as if our senses themselves saw, and heard, and smelled; but it is the mind which is really doing those things with the eyes and ears for its instruments. (See Note 3.)

Office of the Ex

MR. ALCOTT. Now in all this, what are ternal Senses. your senses after? What is it, that this something within you wants, when it uses your eyes, ears, and other organs of sense; what does it go out after?

JOHN D. When we use our tongue, the spirit goes after our food.

LEMUEL. When we look, it wants something to see; and when we listen, it wants something to hear; and when we taste, it wants something to eat and drink.

ALEXANDER. When we look, the spirit comes to

help.

WELLES. When we hear, the spirit is after instruc

tion.

CHARLES. The senses are a kind of feelers, to show forth what the spirit within wants. (See Note 4.) MR. ALCOTT. When you see an infant, you observe that its little body is full of motion. It seems to be constantly seeking after something. Do you think the spirit within it feels, and tries to express its feelings and wants through the senses?

CHARLES assented.

EMMA. The spirit goes out through the senses after

outward things.

MR. ALCOTT. After what outward things?

(Emma did not answer.)

MR. ALCOTT. Josiah, what is your answer?

JOSIAH. My mind sees through my eyes.

EDWARD J. The spirit comes out to see and hear.

HALES. My mind sees with my eyes.

JOSEPH. The senses are to help keep the mind good and the body good.*

MR. ALCOTT. Do they always keep all good?
JOSEPH. When we let them.

MR. ALCOTT. What hinders them sometimes?
JOSEPH. Anger.

MR. ALCOTT.

other times ?

What lets them make us good at

JOSEPH. Love. (See Note 5.)

JOHN D. When a baby goes into his mind to feel, he feels after wisdom and goodness.

MR. ALCOTT. The infant goes inward, then, for wisdom and goodness; and outward for food for the body, and for knowledge ?

ANDREW. When we have done right, the spirit comes out in our eyes; and when we have done wrong, it comes out and makes us ashamed to show our face. (See Note 6.)

WILLIAM B. The senses are made so that your spirit, and soul, and mind, may get knowledge, and be kept alive; for if you had no senses you could not be very wise; and you need the senses to communicate to others, what you gain from the use of your senses.

This child is deaf. His seat was always close by Mr. Alcott, and he fixed his eyes always on Mr. Alcott's lips, and then would follow his eye to the speaker among the children. Sometimes Mr. Alcott would tell him what the children said. His remarks are very characteristic throughout. REC.

MR. ALCOTT. Where does life come from, William ? WILLIAM B. From the spirit.

MR. ALCOTT. Your answer implies that life comes from without, through the senses; for you speak of the spirit's being kept alive by them, as if there was something that came from objects of sense to keep it alive.

WILLIAM B. Oh, I do not mean that; I mean that one person, by means of the senses, is able to keep alive the spirit of others.

Fruits of the
Senses.

EDWARD B. I think the spirit goes into the eyes, ears, &c. after knowledge. But I think the soul would have some wisdom, were blind, deaf, and

even if we had no senses at all, all. (See Note 7.)

WILLIAM B. I think people who had no senses might be good, but could not be very wise.

MR. ALCOTT. What is wisdom?

(A pause.)

Does not wisdom stand for all that the spirit gets from itself? The senses gain knowledge of outward things; the spirit feels, judges of, disposes, uses, this knowledge, and makes it an instrument, and this is wisdom, is it not? Is not this the distinction ?

EDWARD B. A person who has great knowledge has greater means, sometimes, of being bad and unwise.

MR. ALCOTT. Do you remember the two trees in Paradise? the tree of knowledge and the tree of life — of wisdom perhaps?

LUCY. We ought to have some senses to Testimony of the Internal Senses. tell us when we do right, and how. LUCIA. There are senses in the spirit for

that!

MR. ALCOTT. What other senses have we but the body's senses; what are the names of the spirit's senses?