Part 3

In dealing with method heretofore, I have at times come dangerously near to making a false assumption. I have been talking as if a man who took up political science, shorthand, or any other subject, were dealing with only one problem. As a matter of fact he is dealing with a whole series of problems. Just how many it is difficult to say, because no problem worthy of the name is an indivisible unit, and may always be broken into smaller problems. The whole science of æsthetics is included in the simple question “What is beauty?”, the science of ethics is merely the answer to “What is right conduct?”, and metaphysics may be reduced to the problem “What is reality?” But when we come to deal with any of these we instinctively break them up into smaller and more concrete problems, making the treatment easier, just as a general attempts to split his enemy’s forces, so that he can annihilate one section at a time. Often, indeed, the very division of the larger problem into smaller problems constitutes its solution, for we finally come to a problem which practically answers itself, and which we recognize as being included in, or a particular form of, some more general problem to which we already know the answer.

A man sets before himself the question, “What is the proper sphere of Government?” Perhaps he will first of all consider certain different specific activities which might possibly be supposed to come within the sphere of governmental interference. He might ask himself, for instance, “Should the Government interfere with freedom of contract?” Notice that he has here temporarily made his problem narrower, he has chosen to break it up in order to deal with it part by part. But even when he came to cope with this smaller problem he would probably find it necessary to break this up, and he would therefore take a specific example. Suppose a man works for so much an hour, and that nine hours’ work a day gives him the minimum amount on which he can live and support his family. Would it be wise to limit the legal working day of such a man to eight hours? This problem practically answers itself, and so further division is unnecessary. Of course the answer to this does not determine the answer to the original question, for other parts still remain to be considered.

In fact, much of the success of our thinking will depend upon just how we divide our big problems into subsidiary problems, and just what our subsidiary or subordinate problems are. This will depend to some extent on our own natural sagacity, and to some extent on mere chance. No rigid rules can be laid down. The only advice which can be offered is that when a thinker breaks up a problem he should do so with an eye to utility and definiteness.

John Stuart Mill, in an essay on Jeremy Bentham, pointed out that the secret of the latter’s strength and originality of thought lay in his method, which “may be shortly described as the method of detail; of treating wholes by separating them into their parts, abstractions by resolving them into things,—classes and generalities by distinguishing them into the individuals of which they are made up; and breaking every question into pieces before attempting to solve it.” The method was not absolutely original with Bentham, but “whatever originality there was in the method, in the subjects he applied it to, and in the rigidity with which he adhered to it, there was the greatest.”

The systematic thinker is careful of the manner in which he marshals his difficulties. He knows that certain problems should properly be considered before certain others, and he saves himself labor and sometimes error by considering them in that order. Before asking himself how Government should cure a given social evil, he first asks whether it is the duty or even the right of the State to attend to that particular evil at all. In other words, before asking what the State should do in any particular case, he considers first what the proper sphere of government is. It must be admitted that a previous question often cannot be discovered until one has actually attempted the solution of a problem. In the foregoing instance, it would be difficult to determine the proper sphere of government by any other method than a consideration of particular cases where government interference suggests itself.

In fact, it is only by deep reflection on a subject that we come to realize most of the problems involved. You walk along the road with your friend the botanist and he stops to pick what looks to you to be a common wild flower. “Hm,” he muses, “I wonder how that got in this part of the country?” Now that is no problem to you, simply because you do not happen to know why that particular flower should _not_ be there—and what men do not know about they take for granted. Knowledge furnishes problems, and the discovery of problems itself constitutes an intellectual advance.

Whenever you are thrashing out a subject, write down every problem, difficulty and objection that occurs to you. When you get what you consider a satisfactory solution, see whether or not it answers all of them.

I have stated that method is essential to good thinking. I have given rules and examples of methodic thinking. But I do not want to create a false impression. If a man has not within him the materials of a thinker, no amount of method can make him one. Half the thinking process, as pointed out, depends on the occurrence of suggestions. The occurrence of suggestions depends on how ideas are associated in a man’s mind. While this depends to some extent on the education and the whole past life and environment of the individual, it depends far more on inborn mental qualities. All method can do is to awaken the most fruitful associations of ideas already in mind. Hence the more methods we adopt—the greater the number of views we take of any problem—the more solutions will suggest themselves.

There is one further reason why we should take as many different viewpoints as possible. In our example of the inheritance of acquired characteristics in animals, if we had been sure that the results of our deductive reasoning were correct, it would have been a sinful waste of time to experiment. But when we attack a problem by several methods we can compare the results from each. If these results agree we have good evidence that our solution is correct. But if we have adopted quite a number of viewpoints, and have not let the results of one influence those of the next, they are almost certain to be at variance. This means that we have erred in applying one or several methods. How are we to find which of the methods it was, and how are we to prevent such errors?

This is the subject of our next chapter.

III

A FEW CAUTIONS

Thus far we have considered only positive and constructive thinking, and means for obtaining relevant suggestions. We have had almost nothing to do with cautions, means for avoiding fallacy and error, and means for testing the truth and value of suggestions. Most writers who have discussed thinking have dwelt so much on the negative aspect—so much on what we should not do—and have so slighted the question of what we should do, that I have perhaps been led to adopt this order, more from a feeling of revolt than because it is logically better. But I believe I have logic on my side. Constructive methods make thinking “go”; cautions steer it in the right path. An automobile without a steering gear is almost as useless as one without a motor. But an automobile can go without being steered, whereas it cannot be steered unless it is going.

But while with automobiles we can clearly divide moving from steering, we cannot do this with thinking. The two processes are so inextricably bound up, that we cannot engage in one without engaging in the other; we cannot even speak of one without implying the other. I have divided them for convenience of exposition. But in the last chapter we were forced to deal slightly with cautions, and here we shall have to consider constructive methods to some extent.

A case in point is classification. In taking this up from a constructive standpoint, I remarked that all classifications ought to be logical. But I did not say what I meant by logical, nor did I tell how a logical classification could be secured. The two most prominent errors made in classifying are (1) not making classifications mutually exclusive, (2) not making them cover all the objects or phenomena supposed to be classified.

The first error is the less common, for though occurring among all thinkers, it is comparatively infrequent among those who proceed with caution. It is, moreover, more easily discovered than the second. Consider the classification of constructive methods into comparison, observation, and experiment. It is apparent that these methods overlap. We cannot compare without observing, much of our observation involves comparison, when we experiment we must of course observe the results obtained, and the results are usually always compared. All three methods could be classed under observation. It is well to remember, however, that the first classification may be useful—even more so than one strictly logical, and that the nature of a subject will often make impracticable, divisions which do not overlap in some degree.

The second error—that of not making a classification cover all the objects or phenomena it is supposed to cover—is not so easy to detect. It is one to which the greatest philosophers have been heir. Some of our Socialist friends say there are but two kinds of people: capitalists and laborers, “the people who live on others and the people who are lived on.” They overlook that class of farmers who own a little piece of land and do their own tilling. Even if they insist that such a class “is rapidly becoming extinct,” the fact remains that it is still with us and must be taken into account.

All classifications are made with a certain number of facts in mind, and fortunate is he who happens to have just the right facts. We cannot hold many facts in mind at once, and we often generalize upon thousands of things by taking a supposedly representative dozen. To avoid error all we can do is to keep constantly on the lookout for examples, especially those which apparently will not fit into our generalization. If they go in without straining anything, our classification receives added warrant. But sometimes you will find that where you have three classes a new fact will necessitate a fourth, and that often it will overturn your whole beautiful structure.

There is another phase of thinking, which while chiefly cautionary, is also in part constructive. We have so often been warned to “avoid the treachery of words” and to “define all our terms” that a repetition of the advice seems unnecessary. But we cannot overlook the excellent counsel of Blaise Pascal. He urges that we not only define our terms, but that whenever we use them we mentally substitute the definition. However, this needs to be qualified. If every time we used a term we stopped to substitute its definition, our thought might be exact but would hardly move forward very rapidly. It will usually be sufficient simply to substitute the definition a few times, for after doing this we shall gradually come to know exactly what we mean by a term, and further substitution would merely waste time. Of course, all this need be applied only to terms new, technical or equivocal; or those used in a mooted proposition.

I have spoken of analogy as a constructive method. This, however, should be used only for suggestion, for it is most dangerous. Often we use an analogy and are quite unaware of it. Thus many social and political thinkers have called society an “organism,” and have proceeded to deal with it as if it were a large animal. They have thought not in terms of the actual phenomena under consideration, but in terms of the analogy. In so far as the terms of the analogy were more concrete than those of the phenomena, their thinking has been made easier. But no analogy will ever hold good throughout, and consequently these thinkers have often fallen into error.

The quickest way to detect error in analogy is to carry it out as far as it will go—and further. Every analogy will break down somewhere. Any analogy if carried out far enough becomes absurd. We are most likely to err when we carry an analogy too far, but not to the point where the absurdity is apparent. Take the analogy employed in our first chapter, comparing thinking and a ship. For the sake of the image I shall make this a motor-boat. We might carry this out further. We might compare the effect on the mind of books and experience to the fuel used for the engine. The brain, transforming outward experience into thought, might be paralleled with a carburetor transforming fuel into usable form. An idea may be compared to a spark. All this is very fascinating. It may even lead to suggestions of real value. But it is bound soon or late to develop into the ludicrous. The analogy in question, however, does not need to be developed to be confuted. For unless a boat has a propeller and a rudder, its engine is useless. A mind is capable of attaining truth without even being aware of the existence of a science of thinking or of logic.

Another way to find whether an analogy is fallacious is to see whether you can discover a counter analogy. Surely this is the most effective practice in refuting analogy in argument. This suggests the case of the man who had a ticket from New York to Chicago, and tried to use it from Chicago to New York. The railroad refused to accept it, whereupon the man brought suit. The lawyer for the defendant, in the heat of the debate, said, “Why, a man might just as well pay for a barrel of potatoes and then demand a barrel of apples!” Whereupon the attorney for the plaintiff replied, “It would be rather like a grocer selling a man a barrel of potatoes and then trying to compel him to eat them from the top down, refusing to allow him to turn the barrel upside down and begin eating them from the bottom up.” It is best to avoid analogy except for purposes of suggestion, or as a rhetorical device for explaining an idea already arrived at by other means.

I have been forced to defend my advice to take as many viewpoints as possible, by pointing out that the conclusions obtained from these viewpoints might disagree; in fact would be almost sure to disagree. Of course, this disagreement might be avoided if we allowed the conclusions reached by one method or viewpoint to influence our conclusions in another. But if we do this we give our problem more shallow treatment, and we are not so sure of a result when we get it. When a mathematician adds a column of figures from the top down, he confirms by re-adding from the bottom up. He knows that if he added in the same manner the second time he would be liable to fall into the same errors. And in thinking, when we leave one method and take up another, we should try to forget entirely the first conclusion and begin on the problem as if we had never taken it up before. After we have taken up all the applicable methods, then, and then only, should we begin to compare conclusions.

Time forbids doing this with all problems. Time forbids even attacking all problems from different points of view. But there are some problems where this unquestionably ought to be done. The problem of whether or not characteristics acquired during the life time of one individual may be inherited by his offspring, if dealt with at all, is too important to be left to the a priori method alone. This problem asks whether the children of educated parents will necessarily be innately superior to the children of uneducated parents; it asks whether the man of today is superior to the ancient Greek, or even the present day savage; or, assuming that the negro race is inferior to the white race, it asks whether generations of education will bring it to the white race level or leave it unchanged; it asks whether the hope of improving the human race lies in education or eugenics. No question can be more important than this in its practical bearings. The answer to it will profoundly influence our opinions in education, psychology, ethics, economics, political science—even philosophy and metaphysics. The answer we obtain to this question from deductive reasoning, no matter how unanswerable or conclusive it may seem, should be checked up by nothing short of the most thoroughgoing experiment.

Unfortunately the experiments needed for this particular question cannot be carried on by the layman. It is equally to be regretted that scientists have been none too thorough in carrying them out themselves. But we should remember that any result we arrive at should be subject to revision, and that if we take up this problem at all, we should at least make it our duty to read about and criticise all the experiments that come to our notice.

A question has perhaps just occurred to the reader. If the deductive method is to be checked up by experiment, and the results of the experiment are always to be taken, why not experiment first, and omit theory altogether?

Leaving aside the fact that theory is the best guide for experiment—that were it not for theory and the problems and hypotheses that come out of it, we would not know the points we wanted to verify, and hence would experiment aimlessly—a more serious objection is that experiment is seldom if ever perfect, for it nearly always involves some unverified assumption. I have referred to empirical observation and experiment as two different methods. But the difference is mainly, if not solely, one of degree. If we experimented to find out whether acquired characteristics were inherited, it is obvious that our experiments would have to be confined to animals. If we found, let us say, that no acquired characteristic was ever transmitted to offspring, we could not say that this would be equally true of man, but would be justified in concluding only that the acquired characteristics of _animals_ are not transmitted to descendants. Nay, we could not go even this far. We would have to confine ourselves to the statement that certain acquired characteristics of the few score animals we had experimented upon were not transmissible. But even this statement would involve assumption. We could say only that certain acquired characteristics of the few score animals we had experimented upon had not been transmitted in these particular instances. We would have to limit ourselves to a bare statement of fact; we could draw no conclusion whatever. But if we had attacked this problem from the deductive standpoint, and had concluded that owing to certain conditions holding alike in all animals and in man, acquired characteristics _could not possibly_ be transmitted, we would have sufficient ground for deriving from our experiments a broad generalization.

Experiment and deduction are not the only methods which can be checked up against each other. We can do likewise with the comparative and the experimental, the historical and the theoretical—in fact, all viewpoints applicable to any one problem.

* * * * *

When you encounter a question about which there is a controversy, and where the adherents of both sides nearly equal each other in number and intellectual status, you may be almost certain that each side has caught sight of some truth, but that neither has seen the whole truth; and you should endeavor to unite both sides by a broader and deeper solution. A classic philosophical example of this method is Herbert Spencer’s attempt to reconcile science and religion, and his effort to unite the “intuitional” and “experiential” schools of thought. The intuitionists maintained that the mind had from birth intuitions by which it knew certain truths independently of experience. Such truths as the axiom that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points, or that it is morally wrong to do certain acts, were regarded as among these intuitions. The “empiricists” or “sensationalists,” on the other hand, maintained that all our knowledge—even of such a fact, for instance, as that two and two are four, where we cannot conceive otherwise—is learned solely from the individual’s experience, taken in its broadest sense. Herbert Spencer thought he recognized some truth in both these doctrines, and came forward with the theory that there are certain truths which are intuitions so far as the individual is concerned, but that these intuitions have been inherited from our ancestors, were originally built up through the ages, and represent the accumulated experience of the race. Whatever may be thought of Spencer’s success in this case, the value of the method itself is undoubted. It was frequently used by Kant, Hegel, Fichte and other German philosophers.

I have remarked that it is almost possible to sum up the entire process of thinking as the occurrence of suggestions for the solution of difficulties and the testing out of those suggestions. The constructive methods discussed were called means for making good suggestions occur to us. From this standpoint the cautions with which we have just been dealing may be considered as tests of suggestions.

Let us refer back to the analysis of thinking given in the case of the man who discovered footprints on the beach. Even there, in order to give any adequate idea of his thought process, I was obliged to show that for various reasons he rejected certain suggested solutions. But this negative method could be more fully developed. Because the man rejected a certain solution, it does not follow that it was necessarily wrong. Suppose the final suggestion—that the unknown had been on the island all the time—were to have been tested out, and that certain further facts were discovered which tended to disprove it; the man might find it necessary to look for still another solution. But suppose this were not forthcoming, suppose that all the possibilities had been exhausted. It would be necessary to return to some of the original suggestions. He would have to see whether an error had been made in testing them. In rejecting the suggestion of a small boat he may have overestimated the distance of this island from other land. He may have underestimated the difficulties that a man in a small boat is capable of surmounting. In rejecting the supposition of a ship, he may have erred in his judgment of the time the footprints had been on the beach, or of the time it would take a large vessel to get out of sight.

What is essential is that all suggestions be tested out, either by memory, observation or experiment, in all their implications, and that the tendency be resisted to accept the first solution that suggests itself. For the uncritical thinker will always jump at the first suggestion, unless an objection actually forces itself into view. Remaining in a state of doubt is unpleasant. The longer the doubt remains the more unpleasant it becomes. But the man who is willing to accept this unpleasantness, the man who is willing carefully to observe, or experiment if need be, to test the validity of his suggestions, will finally arrive at a solution much deeper, and one which will give him far more satisfaction, than the superficial answer obtained by the man of careless habits of thought.