as exercised by the preacher and orator; it even implicates the tact of diplomacy.  I do not regard this as a properly educational question (although it refers to an art that every teacher must try to master); that is to say, its solution is not connected with education processes strictly so called.  The second problem of moral education is the one really within the scope of the subject—­the problem of fixing moral bents or habits, when the right conduct is once initiated.  On this head, some scientific insight is attainable; and suggestions of solid value may in time accrue, although there never can be the precision attainable in the intellectual region.

* * * * *

I will next advert to the applied science of Art or Aesthetics, long a barren ground, so far as scientific handling was concerned, but now a land of promise.  The old thesis, “What is Beauty?” a good debating society topic, is, I hope, past contending about.  The numerous influences that concur in works of art, or in natural beauty, present a fine opening for delicate analysis; at the same time, they implicate the vaguest and least advanced portion of psychology—­the Emotions.  The German philosophers have usually ranked aesthetics as one of the subjective sciences; but, it is only of late that the department has taken shape in their country.  Lessing gave a great impulse to literary art, and originated a number of pregnant suggestions; and the German love of music has necessarily led to theories as well as to compositions.  We are now in the way to that consummation of aesthetics which may be described as containing (1) a reference to psychology as the mother science, (2) a classification, comparison, and contrast of the fine arts themselves, and (3) an induction of the principles of art composition from the best examples.  Anything like a thorough sifting of fine-art questions would strain psychology at every point—­senses, emotions, intellect; and, if criticism is to go deep, it must ground upon psychological reasons.  Now the mere artist can never be a psychologist; the art critic may, but seldom will; hence, as they will not come over to us, some of us must go over to them.  The Art discussion of the greatest fountains of human feeling—­love and anger—­would react with advantage upon the very difficult psychology of these emotions, so long the sport of superficiality.

[AESTHETICS:  HEDONICS.]

But I hold that aesthetics is but a corner of a larger field that is seldom even named among the sciences of mind; I mean human happiness as a whole, “eudaemonics,” or “hedonics,” or whatever you please to call it.  That the subject is neglected, I do not affirm; but it is not cultivated in the proper place, or in the proper light-giving connection—­that is to say, under the psychology of the human feelings.  It should have at once a close reference to psychology, and an independent construction; while either in comprehending