§ 51. “Analogies are good for illustration, not for proof.” If Comenius had accepted this caution, he would have escaped much useless labour, and might have had a better foundation for his rules than fanciful applications of what he observed in the external world. “Comenius” as August Vogel has said, “is unquestionably right in wishing to draw his principles of education from Nature; but instead of examining the proper constitution and nature of man, and taking that as the basis of his theory, he watches the life of birds, the growth of trees, or the quiet influence of the sun, and thus substitutes for the nature of man nature _without_ man (_die objective Natur_). And yet by Nature he understands that first and primordial state to which as to our original [idea] we should be restored, and by the voice of Nature he understands the universal Providence of God or the ceaseless influence of the Divine Goodness working all in all, that is, leading every creature to the state ordained for it. The vegetative and animal life in Nature is according to Comenius himself not life at all in its highest sense, but the only true life is the intellectual or spiritual life of Man. No doubt in the two lower kinds of life certain analogies may be found for the higher; but nothing can be less worthy of reliance and less scientific than a method which draws its principles for the higher life from what has been observed in the lower.” (A. Vogel’s _Gesch. d. Pädagogik als Wissenschaft_, p. 94.) § 52. This seems to me judicious criticism; but whatever mistakes he may have made, Comenius, like Froebel long after him, strove after a higher unity which should embrace knowledge of every kind. The connexion of knowledges (so constantly overlooked in the schoolroom) was always in his thoughts. “We see that the branches of a tree cannot live unless they all alike suck their juices from a common trunk with common roots. And can we hope that the branches of Wisdom can be torn asunder with safety to their life, that is to truth? Can one be a Natural Philosopher who is not also a Metaphysician? or an Ethical Thinker who does not know something of Physical Science? or a Logician who has no knowledge of real matters? or a Theologian, a jurisconsult, or a Physician, who is not first a Philosopher? or an Orator or Poet, who is not all these at once? He deprives himself of light, of hand, and of regulation, who pushes away from him any shred of the knowable.” (Quoted in Masson’s _L. of Milton_ vol. iij., p. 213 from the Delineatio, [i.e., _Pansophiæ Prodromus_]. Conf. J. H. Newman, _Idea of a University_, Disc. iij.)