Elements of the philosophy of the human mind. By Dugald Stewart. Rev. and abridged, with critical and explanatory notes, for the use of colleges and schools. By Francis Bowen ...

148 ABSTRACT'ION.
render the application of our practical skill more unerring and
more perfect. For as general principles limit the utility of
practical skill to supply the imperfections of theory, they
dirminish the number of cases in which this skill is to be employed, and thus at once facilitate its improvement wherever it
is requisite, and lessen the errors to which it is liable, by contracting the field within which it is possible to commit them.
It would appear, then, that there are two opposite extremes
into which men are apt to fall, in preparing themselves for the
duties of active life. The one rises from habits of abstraction and
generalization carried to an excess; the other, from a minute,
an exclusive, and an unenlightened attention to the objects and
events which happen to fall under their actual experience.
A good education would guard against both extremes. - In a
perfect system of education, care should be taken to guard
against both extremes, and to unite habits of abstraction with
habits of business, in such a manner as to enable men to consider things either in general, or in detail, as the occasion may
require. Whichever of these habits may happen to gain an
undue ascendant over the mind, it will necessarily produce a
character limited in its powers, and fitted only for particular
exertions. Hence some of the apparent inconsistencies which
we may frequently remark in the intellectual capacities of the
same person. One man, from an early indulgence in abstract
speculation, possesses a knowledge of general principles, and a
talent for general reasoning, united with a fluency and eloquence
in the use of general terms, which seem, to the vulgar, to announce abilities fitted for any given situation in life; while, in
the conduct of the simplest affairs, he exhibits every mark of
irresolution and incapacity. Another not only acts with pro
priety and skill in circumstances which require a minute attention to details, but possesses an acuteness of reasoning, and
a facility of expression on all subjects, in which nothing but
what is particular is involved; while on general topics, he is
perfectly unable either to reason or to judge. It is this last
turn of mind, which I think we have, in most instances, in
view, when we speak of good sense, or common sense, in oppo