philosophical thought. The regulation of the second kind of knowledge
would be left to those who had shown genuine mastery in the several
departments into which it is divided; and the whole system would
provide an elaborate rule or canon for intellectual education, which
would, of course, have to be revised every ten years. Some such
arrangement as this would employ the youthful power of the memory to
best advantage, and supply excellent working material to the faculty
of judgment, when it made its appearance later on.

A man's knowledge may be said to be mature, in other words, it has
reached the most complete state of perfection to which he, as an
individual, is capable of bringing it, when an exact correspondence is
established between the whole of his abstract ideas and the things he
has actually perceived for himself. This will mean that each of
his abstract ideas rests, directly or indirectly, upon a basis of
observation, which alone endows it with any real value; and also
that he is able to place every observation he makes under the right
abstract idea which belongs to it. Maturity is the work of experience
alone; and therefore it requires time. The knowledge we derive from
our own observation is usually distinct from that which we acquire
through the medium of abstract ideas; the one coming to us in the
natural way, the other by what people tell us, and the course of
instruction we receive, whether it is good or bad. The result is, that
in youth there is generally very little agreement or correspondence
between our abstract ideas, which are merely phrases in the mind, and
that real knowledge which we have obtained by our own observation. It
is only later on that a gradual approach takes place between these two
kinds of knowledge, accompanied by a mutual correction of error; and
knowledge is not mature until this coalition is accomplished. This
maturity or perfection of knowledge is something quite independent of