Part 4

But it could be applied quite easily to most questions. Suppose you wanted to determine beyond question which of two methods of teaching a given subject was the better. We shall assume for the moment that you have unlimited time and money to experiment. It may be thought that we could settle this simply by teaching one person according to one method and another person according to the other, and that we could determine the relative merits of each method from the progress made by each pupil. This, however, would be practically of no use whatever. One pupil might be naturally brighter than the other, and so would naturally learn quicker, even were he taught by an inferior method.

To make the experiment of any use we should first take two groups of pupils—the larger the better. For it is obvious that if we take a great number of pupils and place them in two groups the differences between the individuals will tend to offset one another. Let us say the subject is one in which the progress can be quantitatively measured, say typewriting, and let us suppose there are fifty pupils in each group. If after a given time all the pupils in one group had attained a greater speed with accuracy than all the pupils in the other, the test would be almost unquestionable. This would be even more conclusive if the groups were reasonably well balanced. For if all of one group were men and all of the other were boys, the men might make more rapid progress than the boys even with a less efficient system. But it should be easy to divide classes and groups so as to have a reasonable balance of intelligence between them. The probable result of any experiment would be that in neither class would all the pupils make more progress than all the pupils of the other, though you might find that the preponderating majority in one class improved faster than those in the other, and this would probably be sufficient to indicate the superiority of one method, even though one or two pupils in the second group progressed faster than one or two in the first.

I say “probably” because there are still many irrelevant factors which might influence the result. For instance, if you had a different teacher for each group, one group might make greater progress not because of the method but because of the teacher. This means either that one teacher should teach both groups, or that we should multiply the number of groups and the number of teachers, and have half the teachers teaching half the groups by one method, and the other half teaching by the other method. Of course here too the more we could multiply the number the better it would be. Even then there might be some reasonable question as to the validity of the experiment, for it might be that one method would tend to encourage faster progress at the beginning, but that the other would lead to greater progress in the long run. This could be determined only by carrying our experiment over a long period. And we might still have irrelevant factors, for the machines on which one group learnt to typewrite might be superior to those on which the other group learnt, and this factor would have to be eliminated in a similar way to the others.

The experimental method has been well summed up by Thomson and Tait in their Natural Philosophy:

“In all cases when a particular agent or cause is to be studied, experiments should be arranged in such a way as to lead if possible to results depending on it alone; or, if this cannot be done, they should be arranged so as to increase the effects due to the cause to be studied till these so far exceed the unavoidable concomitants, that the latter may be considered as only disturbing, not essentially modifying the effects of the principal agent.”

In all experiments one must exercise ingenuity in finding other causes besides the one to be studied which may possibly influence a result, and in eliminating these. It might benefit the reader considerably if he were to think out for himself how he would apply experiment in its most thoroughgoing form to solve a given question, say the inheritance of acquired characteristics.

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I have now cited enough methods to at least indicate what “thinking with method” means. To satisfy a certain human craving all of these have been named, though sometimes arbitrarily. Of course each may have to be modified to some extent to adjust it to different problems. I must repeat: there are methods numberless, and some problems will require methods all their own.

But what is important is that every problem should be dealt with by as many methods as possible. Doubtless you have used, at some time or other in the course of your thinking, nearly every one of the methods I have so far suggested. But the point is not that you have never used these methods at all, but that you have not used them often enough. You were unaware what method you were using. Consequently you used it only occasionally. You used it only when you stumbled on it accidentally. To formulate methods is to bring them to your attention, so that you may use them always, thoroughly, correctly, consistently.

We have treated political science from most angles. We have applied more than one method to several other problems. To still further clarify, exemplify and impress this point, I shall show the application of method to one more subject.

Suppose you wanted to invent a system of shorthand, and wanted to make it as perfect as possible. How would you go about it?

Your first step should be to restate your question most advantageously. You want to create certain characters or symbols, which will (1) take the shortest time to write, (2) will be easily recognized by yourself or others, even if written carelessly, and (3) which will not be so numerous or so complex as to be difficult to learn. You may decide that such symbols would have even further requirements. Next you should decide on the methods to use in attacking your problem—this in order not to forget any. Now assume you have decided on these methods and that the first is the a priori. Your conclusion might be that it would be impossible to have a different symbol for every word, and that it is necessary to have some sort of alphabet. Should this alphabet be based on that used in longhand? That is, should merely a simpler symbol stand in place of each letter? Or should a different symbol represent each sound? Or would it be possible to have a different elementary symbol for each syllable? Having decided the basis for your symbols or characters, you will know at least approximately the number required. Your problem will then become that of making the characters as simple as possible, so that they may be written most quickly; and yet as different from each other as possible so that if written carelessly (as they will be when written swiftly), they may be easily recognized. You might try writing down all the simplest symbols you can think of. Or you might ask yourself whether there is any fundamental geometrical figure from which you can derive your symbols. Or you might study the simplest and easiest movements of the hand, and base your characters on these.

This a priori method is most apt of all to provoke real thinking. It should therefore be taken up before any of the others. Not only is it best for making you think deeply, but it will be more likely than any of the others to make you think originally. However, whether attended by great or little success, this method should be followed by others.

Not the least fruitful of these would be the evolutionary. This, of course, would consist in studying the history of shorthand, finding out the direction in which it has been tending, and thus anticipating in some degree its future development. As this method is comparative we would naturally be led from it to comparing the shorthand systems of to-day, and assaying the good and bad qualities of each. These could only be assayed if we knew something of shorthand theory, and thus our experience with the deductive or a priori method would be of service.

Implied in here is a method of different nature than any we have yet discussed, but one of immense help. In turning from the deductive method to a study of shorthand systems which others have developed, you have an opportunity to compare the results of your own thinking with those obtained by others. If you have failed to solve the question in as good a manner as these others, you can ask yourself wherein and why your own reflections and ingenuity fell short. If you follow this method with all problems—i.e., thinking a thing out for yourself before looking up what others have thought—you will soon improve your thinking surprisingly. The method is capable of application in every problem, from inventing an adding machine to trying to find how the plumber got that $3.46 on the bill.

But to return to shorthand. We still have the empirical and experimental methods. In this particular case the difference between them would be simply one of degree. We could find, for instance, what systems were used by the fastest shorthand writers; but we could get nothing conclusive from this, for we would have to make allowance for the natural ability and length of training of these writers. From merely looking at two outlines or characters, it is often difficult to tell which can be written faster. This could only be tested by writing hundreds in a row and finding the time it took to write the same number of each. Of course such experiment is capable of indefinite expansion.

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