How We Think Part 2

[Sidenote: Physical and social sanctions of correct thinking]

Up to a certain point, the ordinary conditions of life, natural and social, provide the conditions requisite for regulating the operations of inference. The necessities of life enforce a fundamental and persistent discipline for which the most cunningly devised artifices would be ineffective subst.i.tutes. The burnt child dreads the fire; the painful consequence emphasizes the need of correct inference much more than would learned discourse on the properties of heat. Social conditions also put a premium on correct inferring in matters where action based on valid thought is socially important. These sanctions of proper thinking may affect life itself, or at least a life reasonably free from perpetual discomfort. The signs of enemies, of shelter, of food, of the main social conditions, have to be correctly apprehended.

[Sidenote: The serious limitations of such sanctions]

But this disciplinary training, efficacious as it is within certain limits, does not carry us beyond a restricted boundary. Logical attainment in one direction is no bar to extravagant conclusions in another. A savage expert in judging signs of the movements and location of animals that he hunts, will accept and gravely narrate the most preposterous yarns concerning the origin of their habits and structures.

When there is no directly appreciable reaction of the inference upon the security and prosperity of life, there are no natural checks to the acceptance of wrong beliefs. Conclusions may be generated by a modic.u.m of fact merely because the suggestions are vivid and interesting; a large acc.u.mulation of data may fail to suggest a proper conclusion because existing customs are averse to entertaining it. Independent of training, there is a "primitive credulity" which tends to make no distinction between what a trained mind calls fancy and that which it calls a reasonable conclusion. The face in the clouds is believed in as some sort of fact, merely because it is forcibly suggested. Natural intelligence is no barrier to the propagation of error, nor large but untrained experience to the acc.u.mulation of fixed false beliefs. Errors may support one another mutually and weave an ever larger and firmer fabric of misconception. Dreams, the positions of stars, the lines of the hand, may be regarded as valuable signs, and the fall of cards as an inevitable omen, while natural events of the most crucial significance go disregarded. Beliefs in portents of various kinds, now mere nook and cranny superst.i.tions, were once universal. A long discipline in exact science was required for their conquest.

[Sidenote: Superst.i.tion as natural a result as science]

In the mere function of suggestion, there is no difference between the power of a column of mercury to portend rain, and that of the entrails of an animal or the flight of birds to foretell the fortunes of war. For all anybody can tell in advance, the spilling of salt is as likely to import bad luck as the bite of a mosquito to import malaria. Only systematic regulation of the conditions under which observations are made and severe discipline of the habits of entertaining suggestions can secure a decision that one type of belief is vicious and the other sound. The subst.i.tution of scientific for superst.i.tious habits of inference has not been brought about by any improvement in the acuteness of the senses or in the natural workings of the function of suggestion.

It is the result of regulation _of the conditions_ under which observation and inference take place.

[Sidenote: General causes of bad thinking: Bacon's "idols"]

It is instructive to note some of the attempts that have been made to cla.s.sify the main sources of error in reaching beliefs. Francis Bacon, for example, at the beginnings of modern scientific inquiry, enumerated four such cla.s.ses, under the somewhat fantastic t.i.tle of "idols" (Gr.

[Greek: eidola], images), spectral forms that allure the mind into false paths. These he called the idols, or phantoms, of the (_a_) tribe, (_b_) the marketplace, (_c_) the cave or den, and (_d_) the theater; or, less metaphorically, (_a_) standing erroneous methods (or at least temptations to error) that have their roots in human nature generally; (_b_) those that come from intercourse and language; (_c_) those that are due to causes peculiar to a specific individual; and finally, (_d_) those that have their sources in the fashion or general current of a period. Cla.s.sifying these causes of fallacious belief somewhat differently, we may say that two are intrinsic and two are extrinsic. Of the intrinsic, one is common to all men alike (such as the universal tendency to notice instances that corroborate a favorite belief more readily than those that contradict it), while the other resides in the specific temperament and habits of the given individual. Of the extrinsic, one proceeds from generic social conditions--like the tendency to suppose that there is a fact wherever there is a word, and no fact where there is no linguistic term--while the other proceeds from local and temporary social currents.

[Sidenote: Locke on the influence of]

Locke's method of dealing with typical forms of wrong belief is less formal and may be more enlightening. We can hardly do better than quote his forcible and quaint language, when, enumerating different cla.s.ses of men, he shows different ways in which thought goes wrong:

[Sidenote: (_a_) dependence on others,]

1. "The first is of those who seldom reason at all, but do and think according to the example of others, whether parents, neighbors, ministers, or who else they are pleased to make choice of to have an implicit faith in, for the saving of themselves the pains and troubles of thinking and examining for themselves."

[Sidenote: (_b_) self-interest,]

2. "This kind is of those who put pa.s.sion in the place of reason, and being resolved that shall govern their actions and arguments, neither use their own, nor hearken to other people's reason, any farther than it suits their humor, interest, or party."[5]

[5] In another place he says: "Men's prejudices and inclinations impose often upon themselves.... Inclination suggests and slides into discourse favorable terms, which introduce favorable ideas; till at last by this means that is concluded clear and evident, thus dressed up, which, taken in its native state, by making use of none but precise determined ideas, would find no admittance at all."

[Sidenote: (_c_) circ.u.mscribed experience]

3. "The third sort is of those who readily and sincerely follow reason, but for want of having that which one may call large, sound, roundabout sense, have not a full view of all that relates to the question.... They converse but with one sort of men, they read but one sort of books, they will not come in the hearing but of one sort of notions.... They have a pretty traffic with known correspondents in some little creek ... but will not venture out into the great ocean of knowledge." Men of originally equal natural parts may finally arrive at very different stores of knowledge and truth, "when all the odds between them has been the different scope that has been given to their understandings to range in, for the gathering up of information and furnishing their heads with ideas and notions and observations, whereon to employ their mind."[6]

[6] _The Conduct of the Understanding_, -- 3.

In another portion of his writings,[7] Locke states the same ideas in slightly different form.

[7] _Essay Concerning Human Understanding_, bk. IV, ch. XX, "Of Wrong a.s.sent or Error."

[Sidenote: Effect of dogmatic principles,]

1. "That which is inconsistent with our _principles_ is so far from pa.s.sing for probable with us that it will not be allowed possible. The reverence borne to these principles is so great, and their authority so paramount to all other, that the testimony, not only of other men, but the evidence of our own senses are often rejected, when they offer to vouch anything contrary to these _established rules_.... There is nothing more ordinary than children's receiving into their minds propositions ... from their parents, nurses, or those about them; which being insinuated in their unwary as well as unbiased understandings, and fastened by degrees, are at last (and this whether true or false) riveted there by long custom and education, beyond all possibility of being pulled out again. For men, when they are grown up, reflecting upon their opinions and finding those of this sort to be as ancient in their minds as their very memories, not having observed their early insinuation, nor by what means they got them, they are apt to reverence them as sacred things, and not to suffer them to be profaned, touched, or questioned." They take them as standards "to be the great and unerring deciders of truth and falsehood, and the judges to which they are to appeal in all manner of controversies."

[Sidenote: of closed minds,]

2. "Secondly, next to these are men whose understandings are cast into a mold, and fashioned just to the size of a received hypothesis." Such men, Locke goes on to say, while not denying the existence of facts and evidence, cannot be convinced by the evidence that would decide them if their minds were not so closed by adherence to fixed belief.

[Sidenote: of strong pa.s.sion,]

3. "Predominant Pa.s.sions. Thirdly, probabilities which cross men's appet.i.tes and prevailing pa.s.sions run the same fate. Let ever so much probability hang on one side of a covetous man's reasoning, and money on the other, it is easy to foresee which will outweigh. Earthly minds, like mud walls, resist the strongest batteries.

[Sidenote: of dependence upon authority of others]

4. "Authority. The fourth and last wrong measure of probability I shall take notice of, and which keeps in ignorance or error more people than all the others together, is the giving up our a.s.sent to the common received opinions, either of our friends or party, neighborhood or country."

[Sidenote: Causes of bad mental habits are social as well as inborn]

Both Bacon and Locke make it evident that over and above the sources of misbelief that reside in the natural tendencies of the individual (like those toward hasty and too far-reaching conclusions), social conditions tend to instigate and confirm wrong habits of thinking by authority, by conscious instruction, and by the even more insidious half-conscious influences of language, imitation, sympathy, and suggestion. Education has accordingly not only to safeguard an individual against the besetting erroneous tendencies of his own mind--its rashness, presumption, and preference of what chimes with self-interest to objective evidence--but also to undermine and destroy the acc.u.mulated and self-perpetuating prejudices of long ages. When social life in general has become more reasonable, more imbued with rational conviction, and less moved by stiff authority and blind pa.s.sion, educational agencies may be more positive and constructive than at present, for they will work in harmony with the educative influence exercised w.i.l.l.y-nilly by other social surroundings upon an individual's habits of thought and belief. At present, the work of teaching must not only transform natural tendencies into trained habits of thought, but must also fortify the mind against irrational tendencies current in the social environment, and help displace erroneous habits already produced.

-- 4. _Regulation Transforms Inference into Proof_

[Sidenote: A leap is involved in all thinking]

Thinking is important because, as we have seen, it is that function in which given or ascertained facts stand for or indicate others which are not directly ascertained. But the process of reaching the absent from the present is peculiarly exposed to error; it is liable to be influenced by almost any number of unseen and unconsidered causes,--past experience, received dogmas, the stirring of self-interest, the arousing of pa.s.sion, sheer mental laziness, a social environment steeped in biased traditions or animated by false expectations, and so on. The exercise of thought is, in the literal sense of that word, _inference_; by it one thing _carries us over_ to the idea of, and belief in, another thing. It involves a jump, a leap, a going beyond what is surely known to something else accepted on its warrant. Unless one is an idiot, one simply cannot help having all things and events suggest other things not actually present, nor can one help a tendency to believe in the latter on the basis of the former. The very inevitableness of the jump, the leap, to something unknown, only emphasizes the necessity of attention to the conditions under which it occurs so that the danger of a false step may be lessened and the probability of a right landing increased.

[Sidenote: Hence, the need of regulation which, when adequate, makes proof]

Such attention consists in regulation (1) of the conditions under which the function of suggestion takes place, and (2) of the conditions under which credence is yielded to the suggestions that occur. Inference controlled in these two ways (the study of which in detail const.i.tutes one of the chief objects of this book) forms _proof_. To prove a thing means primarily to try, to test it. The guest bidden to the wedding feast excused himself because he had to _prove_ his oxen. Exceptions are said to prove a rule; _i.e._ they furnish instances so extreme that they try in the severest fashion its applicability; if the rule will stand such a test, there is no good reason for further doubting it. Not until a thing has been tried--"tried out," in colloquial language--do we know its true worth. Till then it may be pretense, a bluff. But the thing that has come out victorious in a test or trial of strength carries its credentials with it; it is approved, because it has been proved. Its value is clearly evinced, shown, _i.e._ demonstrated. So it is with inferences. The mere fact that inference in general is an invaluable function does not guarantee, nor does it even help out the correctness of any particular inference. Any inference may go astray; and as we have seen, there are standing influences ever ready to a.s.sist its going wrong. _What is important, is that every inference shall be a tested inference_; _or_ (since often this is not possible) _that we shall discriminate between beliefs that rest upon tested evidence and those that do not, and shall be accordingly on our guard as to the kind and degree of a.s.sent yielded_.

[Sidenote: The office of education in forming skilled]

[Sidenote: powers of thinking]

While it is not the business of education to prove every statement made, any more than to teach every possible item of information, it is its business to cultivate deep-seated and effective habits of discriminating tested beliefs from mere a.s.sertions, guesses, and opinions; to develop a lively, sincere, and open-minded preference for conclusions that are properly grounded, and to ingrain into the individual's working habits methods of inquiry and reasoning appropriate to the various problems that present themselves. No matter how much an individual knows as a matter of hearsay and information, if he has not att.i.tudes and habits of this sort, he is not intellectually educated. He lacks the rudiments of mental discipline. And since these habits are not a gift of nature (no matter how strong the apt.i.tude for acquiring them); since, moreover, the casual circ.u.mstances of the natural and social environment are not enough to compel their acquisition, the main office of education is to supply conditions that make for their cultivation.

The formation of these habits is the Training of Mind.

CHAPTER THREE

NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT

[Sidenote: Only native powers can be trained.]

In the last chapter we considered the need of transforming, through training, the natural capacities of inference into habits of critical examination and inquiry. The very importance of thought for life makes necessary its control by education because of its natural tendency to go astray, and because social influences exist that tend to form habits of thought leading to inadequate and erroneous beliefs. Training must, however, be itself based upon the natural tendencies,--that is, it must find its point of departure in them. A being who could not think without training could never be trained to think; one may have to learn to think _well_, but not to _think_. Training, in short, must fall back upon the prior and independent existence of natural powers; it is concerned with their proper direction, not with creating them.

[Sidenote: Hence, the one taught must take the initiative]

Teaching and learning are correlative or corresponding processes, as much so as selling and buying. One might as well say he has sold when no one has bought, as to say that he has taught when no one has learned.

And in the educational transaction, the initiative lies with the learner even more than in commerce it lies with the buyer. If an individual can learn to think only in the sense of learning to employ more economically and effectively powers he already possesses, even more truly one can teach others to think only in the sense of appealing to and fostering powers already active in them. Effective appeal of this kind is impossible unless the teacher has an insight into existing habits and tendencies, the natural resources with which he has to ally himself.

[Sidenote: Three important natural resources]