How We Think Part 12

[Sidenote: What is familiar is mentally concrete]

To one who is thoroughly at home in physics and chemistry, the notions of _atom_ and _molecule_ are fairly concrete. They are constantly used without involving any labor of thought in apprehending what they mean.

But the layman and the beginner in science have first to remind themselves of things with which they already are well acquainted, and go through a process of slow translation; the terms _atom_ and _molecule_ losing, moreover, their hard-won meaning only too easily if familiar things, and the line of transition from them to the strange, drop out of mind. The same difference is ill.u.s.trated by any technical terms: _coefficient_ and _exponent_ in algebra, _triangle_ and _square_ in their geometric as distinct from their popular meanings; _capital_ and _value_ as used in political economy, and so on.

[Sidenote: Practical things are familiar]

The difference as noted is purely relative to the intellectual progress of an individual; what is abstract at one period of growth is concrete at another; or even the contrary, as one finds that things supposed to be thoroughly familiar involve strange factors and unsolved problems.

There is, nevertheless, a general line of cleavage which, deciding upon the whole what things fall within the limits of familiar acquaintance and what without, marks off the concrete and the abstract in a more permanent way. _These limits are fixed mainly by the demands of practical life._ Things such as sticks and stones, meat and potatoes, houses and trees, are such constant features of the environment of which we have to take account in order to live, that their important meanings are soon learnt, and indissolubly a.s.sociated with objects. We are acquainted with a thing (or it is familiar to us) when we have so much to do with it that its strange and unexpected corners are rubbed off.

The necessities of social intercourse convey to adults a like concreteness upon such terms as _taxes_, _elections_, _wages_, _the law_, and so on. Things the meaning of which I personally do not take in directly, appliances of cook, carpenter, or weaver, for example, are nevertheless unhesitatingly cla.s.sed as concrete, since they are so directly connected with our common social life.

[Sidenote: The theoretical, or strictly intellectual, is abstract]

By contrast, the abstract is the _theoretical_, or that not intimately a.s.sociated with practical concerns. The abstract thinker (the man of pure science as he is sometimes called) deliberately abstracts from application in life; that is, he leaves practical uses out of account.

This, however, is a merely negative statement. What remains when connections with use and application are excluded? _Evidently only what has to do with knowing considered as an end in itself._ Many notions of science are abstract, not only because they cannot be understood without a long apprentices.h.i.+p in the science (which is equally true of technical matters in the arts), but also because the whole content of their meaning has been framed for the sole purpose of facilitating further knowledge, inquiry, and speculation. _When thinking is used as a means to some end, good, or value beyond itself, it is concrete; when it is employed simply as a means to more thinking, it is abstract._ To a theorist an idea is adequate and self-contained just because it engages and rewards thought; to a medical pract.i.tioner, an engineer, an artist, a merchant, a politician, it is complete only when employed in the furthering of some interest in life--health, wealth, beauty, goodness, success, or what you will.

[Sidenote: Contempt for theory]

For the great majority of men under ordinary circ.u.mstances, the practical exigencies of life are almost, if not quite, coercive. Their main business is the proper conduct of their affairs. Whatever is of significance only as affording scope for thinking is pallid and remote--almost artificial. Hence the contempt felt by the practical and successful executive for the "mere theorist"; hence his conviction that certain things may be all very well in theory, but that they will not do in practice; in general, the depreciatory way in which he uses the terms _abstract_, _theoretical_, and _intellectual_--as distinct from _intelligent_.

[Sidenote: But theory is highly practical]

This att.i.tude is justified, of course, under certain conditions. But depreciation of theory does not contain the whole truth, as common or practical sense recognizes. There is such a thing, even from the common-sense standpoint, as being "too practical," as being so intent upon the immediately practical as not to see beyond the end of one's nose or as to cut off the limb upon which one is sitting. The question is one of limits, of degrees and adjustments, rather than one of absolute separation. Truly practical men give their minds free play about a subject without asking too closely at every point for the advantage to be gained; exclusive preoccupation with matters of use and application so narrows the horizon as in the long run to defeat itself.

It does not pay to tether one's thoughts to the post of use with too short a rope. Power in action requires some largeness and imaginativeness of vision. Men must at least have enough interest in thinking for the sake of thinking to escape the limits of routine and custom. Interest in knowledge for the sake of knowledge, in thinking for the sake of the free play of thought, is necessary then to the _emanc.i.p.ation_ of practical life--to make it rich and progressive.

We may now recur to the pedagogic maxim of going from the concrete to the abstract.

[Sidenote: Begin with the concrete means begin with practical manipulations]

1. Since the _concrete_ denotes thinking applied to activities for the sake of dealing effectively with the difficulties that present themselves practically, "beginning with the concrete" signifies that we should at the outset make much of _doing_; especially, make much in occupations that are not of a routine and mechanical kind and hence require intelligent selection and adaptation of means and materials. We do not "follow the order of nature" when we multiply mere sensations or acc.u.mulate physical objects. Instruction in number is not concrete merely because splints or beans or dots are employed, while whenever the use and bearing of number relations are clearly perceived, the number idea is concrete even if figures alone are used. Just what sort of symbol it is best to use at a given time--whether blocks, or lines, or figures--is entirely a matter of adjustment to the given case. If physical things used in teaching number or geography or anything else do not leave the mind illuminated with recognition of a _meaning_ beyond themselves, the instruction that uses them is as abstract as that which doles out ready-made definitions and rules; for it distracts attention from ideas to mere physical excitations.

[Sidenote: Confusion of the concrete with the sensibly isolated]

The conception that we have only to put before the senses particular physical objects in order to impress certain ideas upon the mind amounts almost to a superst.i.tion. The introduction of object lessons and sense-training scored a distinct advance over the prior method of linguistic symbols, and this advance tended to blind educators to the fact that only a halfway step had been taken. Things and sensations develop the child, indeed, but only because he _uses_ them in mastering his body and in the scheme of his activities. Appropriate continuous occupations or activities involve the use of natural materials, tools, modes of energy, and do it in a way that compels thinking as to what they mean, how they are related to one another and to the realization of ends; while the mere isolated presentation of things remains barren and dead. A few generations ago the great obstacle in the way of reform of primary education was belief in the almost magical efficacy of the symbols of language (including number) to produce mental training; at present, belief in the efficacy of objects just as objects, blocks the way. As frequently happens, the better is an enemy of the best.

[Sidenote: Transfer of interest to intellectual matters]

2. The interest in results, in the successful carrying on of an activity, should be gradually transferred to study of objects--their properties, consequences, structures, causes, and effects. The adult when at work in his life calling is rarely free to devote time or energy--beyond the necessities of his immediate action--to the study of what he deals with. (_Ante_, p. 43.) The educative activities of childhood should be so arranged that direct interest in the activity and its outcome create a demand for attention to matters that have a more and more _indirect and remote_ connection with the original activity.

The direct interest in carpentering or shop work should yield organically and gradually an interest in geometric and mechanical problems. The interest in cooking should grow into an interest in chemical experimentation and in the physiology and hygiene of bodily growth. The making of pictures should pa.s.s to an interest in the technique of representation and the aesthetics of appreciation, and so on. This development is what the term _go_ signifies in the maxim "_go_ from the concrete to the abstract"; it represents the dynamic and truly educative factor of the process.

[Sidenote: Development of delight in the activity of thinking]

3. The outcome, the _abstract_ to which education is to proceed, is an interest in intellectual matters for their own sake, a delight in thinking for the sake of thinking. It is an old story that acts and processes which at the outset are incidental to something else develop and maintain an absorbing value of their own. So it is with thinking and with knowledge; at first incidental to results and adjustments beyond themselves, they attract more and more attention to themselves till they become ends, not means. Children engage, unconstrainedly and continually, in reflective inspection and testing for the sake of what they are interested in doing successfully. Habits of thinking thus generated may increase in volume and extent till they become of importance on their own account.

[Sidenote: Examples of the transition]

The three instances cited in Chapter Six represented an ascending cycle from the practical to the theoretical. Taking thought to keep a personal engagement is obviously of the concrete kind. Endeavoring to work out the meaning of a certain part of a boat is an instance of an intermediate kind. The reason for the existence and position of the pole is a practical reason, so that to the architect the problem was purely concrete--the maintenance of a certain system of action. But for the pa.s.senger on the boat, the problem was theoretical, more or less speculative. It made no difference to his reaching his destination whether he worked out the meaning of the pole. The third case, that of the appearance and movement of the bubbles, ill.u.s.trates a strictly theoretical or abstract case. No overcoming of physical obstacles, no adjustment of external means to ends, is at stake. Curiosity, intellectual curiosity, is challenged by a seemingly anomalous occurrence; and thinking tries simply to account for an apparent exception in terms of recognized principles.

[Sidenote: Theoretical knowledge never the whole end]

(_i_) Abstract thinking, it should be noted, represents _an_ end, not _the_ end. The power of sustained thinking on matters remote from direct use is an outgrowth of practical and immediate modes of thought, but not a subst.i.tute for them. The educational end is not the destruction of power to think so as to surmount obstacles and adjust means and ends; it is not its replacement by abstract reflection. Nor is theoretical thinking a higher type of thinking than practical. A person who has at command both types of thinking is of a higher order than he who possesses only one. Methods that in developing abstract intellectual abilities weaken habits of practical or concrete thinking, fall as much short of the educational ideal as do the methods that in cultivating ability to plan, to invent, to arrange, to forecast, fail to secure some delight in thinking irrespective of practical consequences.

[Sidenote: Nor that most congenial to the majority of pupils]

(_ii_) Educators should also note the very great individual differences that exist; they should not try to force one pattern and model upon all.

In many (probably the majority) the executive tendency, the habit of mind that thinks for purposes of conduct and achievement, not for the sake of knowing, remains dominant to the end. Engineers, lawyers, doctors, merchants, are much more numerous in adult life than scholars, scientists, and philosophers. While education should strive to make men who, however prominent their professional interests and aims, partake of the spirit of the scholar, philosopher, and scientist, no good reason appears why education should esteem the one mental habit inherently superior to the other, and deliberately try to transform the type from practical to theoretical. Have not our schools (as already suggested, p.

49) been one-sidedly devoted to the more abstract type of thinking, thus doing injustice to the majority of pupils? Has not the idea of a "liberal" and "humane" education tended too often in practice to the production of technical, because overspecialized, thinkers?

[Sidenote: Aim of education is a working balance]

The aim of education should be to secure a balanced interaction of the two types of mental att.i.tude, having sufficient regard to the disposition of the individual not to hamper and cripple whatever powers are naturally strong in him. The narrowness of individuals of strong concrete bent needs to be liberalized. Every opportunity that occurs within their practical activities for developing curiosity and susceptibility to intellectual problems should be seized. Violence is not done to natural disposition, but the latter is broadened. As regards the smaller number of those who have a taste for abstract, purely intellectual topics, pains should be taken to multiply opportunities and demands for the application of ideas; for translating symbolic truths into terms of social life and its ends. Every human being has both capabilities, and every individual will be more effective and happier if both powers are developed in easy and close interaction with each other.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EMPIRICAL AND SCIENTIFIC THINKING

-- 1. _Empirical Thinking_

[Sidenote: Empirical thinking depends on past habits]

Apart from the development of scientific method, inferences depend upon habits that have been built up under the influence of a number of particular experiences not themselves arranged for logical purposes. A says, "It will probably rain to-morrow." B asks, "Why do you think so?"

and A replies, "Because the sky was lowering at sunset." When B asks, "What has that to do with it?" A responds, "I do not know, but it generally does rain after such a sunset." He does not perceive any _connection_ between the appearance of the sky and coming rain; he is not aware of any continuity in the facts themselves--any law or principle, as we usually say. He simply, from frequently recurring conjunctions of the events, has a.s.sociated them so that when he sees one he thinks of the other. One _suggests_ the other, or is _a.s.sociated_ with it. A man may believe it will rain to-morrow because he has consulted the barometer; but if he has no conception how the height of the mercury column (or the position of an index moved by its rise and fall) is connected with variations of atmospheric pressure, and how these in turn are connected with the amount of moisture in the air, his belief in the likelihood of rain is purely empirical. When men lived in the open and got their living by hunting, fis.h.i.+ng, or pasturing flocks, the detection of the signs and indications of weather changes was a matter of great importance. A body of proverbs and maxims, forming an extensive section of traditionary folklore, was developed. But as long as there was no understanding _why_ or _how_ certain events were signs, as long as foresight and weather shrewdness rested simply upon repeated conjunction among facts, beliefs about the weather were thoroughly empirical.

[Sidenote: It is fairly adequate in some matters,]

In similar fas.h.i.+on learned men in the Orient learned to predict, with considerable accuracy, the recurrent positions of the planets, the sun and the moon, and to foretell the time of eclipses, without understanding in any degree the laws of the movements of heavenly bodies--that is, without having a notion of the continuities existing among the facts themselves. They had learned from repeated observations that things happened in about such and such a fas.h.i.+on. Till a comparatively recent time, the truths of medicine were mainly in the same condition. Experience had shown that "upon the whole," "as a rule,"

"generally or usually speaking," certain results followed certain remedies, when symptoms were given. Our beliefs about human nature in individuals (psychology) and in ma.s.ses (sociology) are still very largely of a purely empirical sort. Even the science of geometry, now frequently reckoned a typical rational science, began, among the Egyptians, as an acc.u.mulation of recorded observations about methods of approximate mensuration of land surfaces; and only gradually a.s.sumed, among the Greeks, scientific form.

The _disadvantages_ of purely empirical thinking are obvious.

[Sidenote: but is very apt to lead to false beliefs,]

1. While many empirical conclusions are, roughly speaking, correct; while they are exact enough to be of great help in practical life; while the presages of a weatherwise sailor or hunter may be more accurate, within a certain restricted range, than those of a scientist who relies wholly upon scientific observations and tests; while, indeed, empirical observations and records furnish the raw or crude material of scientific knowledge, yet the empirical method affords no way of discriminating between right and wrong conclusions. Hence it is responsible for a mult.i.tude of _false_ beliefs. The technical designation for one of the commonest fallacies is _post hoc, ergo propter hoc_; the belief that because one thing comes _after_ another, it comes _because_ of the other. Now this fallacy of method is the animating principle of empirical conclusions, even when correct--the correctness being almost as much a matter of good luck as of method. That potatoes should be planted only during the crescent moon, that near the sea people are born at high tide and die at low tide, that a comet is an omen of danger, that bad luck follows the cracking of a mirror, that a patent medicine cures a disease--these and a thousand like notions are a.s.severated on the basis of empirical coincidence and conjunction. Moreover, habits of expectation and belief are formed otherwise than by a number of repeated similar cases.

[Sidenote: and does not enable us to cope with the novel,]

2. The more numerous the experienced instances and the closer the watch kept upon them, the greater is the trustworthiness of constant conjunction as evidence of connection among the things themselves. Many of our most important beliefs still have only this sort of warrant. No one can yet tell, with certainty, the necessary cause of old age or of death--which are empirically the most certain of all expectations. But even the most reliable beliefs of this type fail when they confront the _novel_. Since they rest upon past uniformities, they are useless when further experience departs in any considerable measure from ancient incident and wonted precedent. Empirical inference follows the grooves and ruts that custom wears, and has no track to follow when the groove disappears. So important is this aspect of the matter that Clifford found the difference between ordinary skill and scientific thought right here. "Skill enables a man to deal with the same circ.u.mstances that he has met before, scientific thought enables him to deal with different circ.u.mstances that he has never met before." And he goes so far as to define scientific thinking as "the application of old experience to new circ.u.mstances."

[Sidenote: and leads to laziness and presumption,]

3. We have not yet made the acquaintance of the most harmful feature of the empirical method. Mental inertia, laziness, unjustifiable conservatism, are its probable accompaniments. Its general effect upon mental att.i.tude is more serious than even the specific wrong conclusions in which it has landed. Wherever the chief dependence in forming inferences is upon the conjunctions observed in past experience, failures to agree with the usual order are slurred over, cases of successful confirmation are exaggerated. Since the mind naturally demands some principle of continuity, some connecting link between separate facts and causes, forces are arbitrarily invented for that purpose. Fantastic and mythological explanations are resorted to in order to supply missing links. The pump brings water because nature abhors a vacuum; opium makes men sleep because it has a dormitive potency; we recollect a past event because we have a faculty of memory.

In the history of the progress of human knowledge, out and out myths accompany the first stage of empiricism; while "hidden essences" and "occult forces" mark its second stage. By their very nature, these "causes" escape observation, so that their explanatory value can be neither confirmed nor refuted by further observation or experience.

Hence belief in them becomes purely traditionary. They give rise to doctrines which, inculcated and handed down, become dogmas; subsequent inquiry and reflection are actually stifled. (_Ante_, p. 23.)

[Sidenote: and to dogmatism]