Note 135 — Chapter IX · THE PHILOSOPHERS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. DESCARTES, MALEBRANCHE, LOCKE.

It is usually said that a pupil’s distaste for a study indicates one of two things, either the mode of presenting the subject is bad, or it is presented at an unseasonable period of mental development; but this distaste is quite as likely to be due to the fact that a certain mode of mental activity has not yet been established; for until fairly established, its exercise cannot be pleasurable. The assumption that intellectual appetites already exist and are waiting to be gratified, or that they will invariably appear at certain periods of mental development, is by no means a general law of the mental life. In many cases, these appetites must be created, and it may often be that the studies employed for this purpose may not at first be relished. And there are cases where, under the best of skill, this relish may never come; and still, the knowledge or the discipline is so necessary that the studies may be enforced contrary to the pupil’s pleasure. (P.)