METHODS OF SCIENCE; NUMBERS 13 



a prolific growth which we can neither start nor 

 stop, but may sometimes direct and bend to our 

 purpose, we no longer heed such sterile dicta as 

 those which say that nothing comes from a 

 process of reasoning except that which is put 

 into it. As well might we tell the farmer that 

 nothing comes out of the ground except what 

 goes into it. Every thought, every statement, 

 throws out its tentacles to search the neighbor- 

 ing territory. We cannot state a rule without 

 wondering whether the converse is true. If I 

 write down the numbers 1, 3, 5, 7, you are all 

 expecting me next to A^T:'ite down 9. If I slowly 

 draw a curve upon the blackboard, you begin 

 to predict whether this curve will take an up- 

 ward or a downward direction. In some measure 

 our thought is always directed by our previous 

 knowledge; and when the process of reaching 

 out from given data is no longer a random 

 search but is given a quite definite direction, we 

 call the process extrapolation. 



Now there are many kinds of thought and 

 processes of abstraction which have little to do 

 with the particular objective that we call sci- 

 ence, yet, as I have already intimated, the meth- 

 ods are often very like those which lead to our 

 sciences. A warlike people, during peacful in- 



