Note 186 — Chapter XIV · THE PHILOSOPHERS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.—CONDILLAC, DIDEROT, HELVETIUS, AND KANT.

This thought throws light on a dictum of current pedagogy, “First, the idea, then the term.” It shows that very often, in actual experience, the sequence is from term to idea. The relation between term and idea is the same in kind as that between sentence and thought. Must we then say, “First the thought, then the sentence”? Or, “First the thought, then the chapter or the book”?

The disciplinary value of translation is also well stated. It may be doubted whether the schools furnish a better “intellectual gymnastic.” Three high intellectual attainments are involved in a real translation: 1. The separation of the thought from the original form of words; 2. The seizing or comprehension of the thought as a mental possession; and 3. The embodying of the thought in a new form. A strictly analogous process, of almost equal value in its place, is that variety of reading in which the pupil is required to express the thought of the paragraph in his own language. This exercise involves the three processes above stated, and may be called “the translation of thought from one form into another, in the same language.” (P.)