seem to be doing nothing, but this will only be for a
moment; very soon he will speak, and so will reveal what is happening
within him, and then his ebullient activity will carry him along in a
series of explorations and discoveries. He is saved.

Now take the case of other children in whom the same primitive
phenomenon is taking place, but who are surrounded by too great a
profusion of objects. At the moment of maturity they are seen to be
caught, obstructed, almost palpably entangled in the toils that bind
them to earth. A diminution of the absorbed attention bestowed upon
the new objects, instability, and consequently fatigue, manifest
themselves in an obvious extinction of internal activity. The child's
bearing deteriorates, he indulges in loud, empty laughter, rude
actions, and indolence. He demands "other objects," and then again
other objects, because he has remained imprisoned "in the vicious
circle of vanities," and is no longer sensible to anything but the
desire to alleviate his weariness. Like the adult who during a chaotic
life commits kindred errors, he becomes undisciplined, feeble, and "in
peril of perdition." If some one does not help him by wresting from
him the futile objects, and pointing out his heaven to him, he will
hardly have the energy to save himself.

These two extreme types will give an idea of the criteria by which we
experimentally determine the quantity of the material necessary for
development.

Over-abundance debilitates and retards progress; this has been proved
again and again by my collaborators.

If, on the other hand, the material be insufficient, and the primary
auto-exercise incapable of leading the child on to that _maturity_
which causes him to ascend, there will be no explosion of that
spontaneous phenomenon of abstraction which is the second stage of an
auto-education advancing in infinite progression. The same fundamental
phenomenon of absorbed and prolonged attention which leads to
repetition of the acts, guides us in determining the stimuli suitable
to the _age_ of the child. A stimulus which will cause a child of
three years old to repeat an act forty times in succession, may only
be repeated ten times by a child of six; the object which arouses the
interest of a child of three no longer interests a child of six.
Nevertheless the child of six is capable of fixing his attention for a
much longer period than a child of three, when the stimulus is suited
to his activiti