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In overstepping the confines of matter, if our resources are separately weaker, they are nevertheless more numerous. The first is illustration a word which means here precisely what it does elsewhere. Suppose I desire my pupil to understand what I understand, when I hear the word pity. I represent a miserable woman thinly clad, and shivering with her babe at midnight in midwinter, on the marble step of some stately mansion in Broadway I describe the tears that chase each other down her care-worn cheeks. I paint her mournful gaze through the gloom of the deserted street, and the blank look of despair, with which at last she suffers her head to fall upon her aching bosom; and, as I regard the image, I have thus created before me, I point to my heart, and throw into my countenance an expression characteristic of the emotion I assume to feel. In view of the circumstances, it can hardly be misunderstood.

The next process is metaphor. Let the same word, pity, be the subject. I represent the earth, parched by the heat of summer. I point to the sun, pouring down a most intolerable radiance. I seem, here and there, to see animals panting under the oppressive influence, and men melting in perspiration. The herbage is shriveled, brown and dry. The soil is baked and intersected with cracks in a thousand directions. Suddenly I see a cloud arise in the west. It expands itself over the surface of the whole heaven. I endow it with animation and thought. I perceive it regarding from the sky the pitiable condition of all the lower creation. I see it dissolving away to tears, and pouring out its pitying moisture, in showers, to re-animate and refresh the drooping world.

Metaphoric illustration must be used with caution. When so used, it diversifies the teacher's labour and the learner's toil, with an agreeable variety; and often presents ideas in a very striking light. It is peculiarly useful in cases where simple illustrations, adapted to the learner's capacity, are not easily to be found.

The processes thus far enumerated are of a kind usually called familiar, in opposition to others denominated philosophic, which we shall proceed to consider.

Of these, the first is induction. By this word is meant a mental operation on the part of the pupil himself; a species of analysis into which he is led by the teacher, and in the course of which, he arrives independently at notions, not before distinctly recognized. I have, for example, a pupil, who has never contemplated edifices, or buildings as a class. Making the usual sign for that in which we live, I enquire (a question easily asked in the sign-language), if my pupil has ever seen a similar object. He answers yes, and I require him to describe it, and to tell its use. I ask then for another, and another and another, until his stock is exhausted. But I shall not find it necessary to repeat my interrogatory so often. I shall be anticipated. The characteristic of this class of objects will be brought by my questions before the pupil's mind, and he will run on from one thing to another, until there remain no more. I have succeeded in bringing him to contemplate as a class, a number of objects, which he had been accustomed to consider only as individuals. I proceed to give a name to this newly acquired notion.

The second of these processes is exposition; a kind of analysis precisely like the former in kind, but differing in the mode of conducting it. In the former case the pupil unconsciously passes through the requisite steps; in the latter the teacher does the same with design; the learner remaining a passive spectator. The process is more rapid than induction, and at the same time less certain. It is, hence, better adapted to a later period of instruction, while the former can only, with safety, be depended on, while the mind is yet for the most part undisciplined. As an example, let us take the correlative personal nouns, superiour and inferiour. I enumerate all the particulars which may be supposed to render one individual superiour to another, such as superiour power, superiour wisdom, superiour virtue, superiour ingenuity, superiour strength, superiour agility, etc., and intimate that of two individuals, he who possesses all or any one of these, is entitled to the more honourable appellation. The process is simply definition a posteriori. The third method is that of definition indirect. This is of two kinds, definition by exclusion, and definition by contrast. Both may very well be employed together, for the contrast or direct opposite of an idea is, of course, excluded from the idea itself. Suppose I wish to define liberality or generosity. By the contrast I may say, in the beginning, that it is the reverse of a niggardly, hoarding disposition. Nevertheless, it is not prodigality, or wasteful expenditure. Neither is it the disbursement of sums, however vast, which one ought to pay. Nor is it the free use of money, from a mean-spirited fear of the imputation of stinginess; nor, for the sake of acquiring the name of a good companionable fellow; nor, in order to compass some secret end; nor, for any reason, in short, but the spontaneous promptings of a noble heart, that despises the lucre of gain, but loves its fellows, and desires to impart to them of its means of enjoyment. This process is one of frequent use, and is one of the most efficient known to the art.