24 PART I. THE PROBLEM. 



If the child's method of attacking problems developed from 

 within, his world of ideas might automatically grow to be or- 

 ganised and compact on approaching adulthood. As a matter 

 of fact, however, the modes of mental reaction beyond the 

 early animal stage are furnished by the cultural environment, 

 and hence, after the Rubicon of infancy is passed, his discrimi- 

 nations and classifications reflect in a rudimentary form this 

 environment which, as we shall see in the next Section, has 

 hitherto normally occupied a low scientific plane. That is to 

 say, since the cultural environment varies indefinitely in space 

 and time, and since methodical thinking is as yet socially un- 

 organised, we may expect children to develop a perplexing 

 number of markedly ineffective ways of approaching the every- 

 day problems of life. This we actually observe to be the case. 

 According to the opportunities afforded, and the conditions of 

 the social environment, we note in the young the profoundest 

 cultural divergences some are grossly ignorant, others are ex- 

 cellently informed ; some are stupid, others are brilliant; some 

 are credulous to a degree, others judiciously discriminate. 

 Especially if our survey be historical and geographical, do we 

 discern prodigious and capricious deviations in intellection, 

 moral insight, taste, and practical ability, manifestly determined 

 by cultural and not by hereditary factors. We are therefore 

 prepared to find that since the great majority of children 

 receive but a poor educational equipment, and live under any- 

 thing but ideal cultural conditions, they should exhibit as a 

 class a very modest methodological status. Following the child 

 from infancy to adolescence, we are thus struck with his essen- 

 tial dependence culturally on human advance as a whole, on 

 the constitution of his social environment, and on the nature 

 of his personal circumstances. 



We note, therefore, in the child two characteristics: (a) the 

 development of the chief elements in the growth of thought 

 the impulse to know, apprehension of objects, observation, gene- 

 ralisation, imagination, reasoning, judgment, and, above all, pro- 

 fiting by the inventions and discoveries of others, and (6) the 

 absence of anything resembling the circumspection, comprehen- 

 siveness, and systematic procedure of scientific method, except 

 in so far as highly efficient methodological teaching and training- 

 are provided. 



We will enquire now to what extent, intellectually, the ordi- 

 nary scientifically untrained adult differs from the child whose 

 offspring he is. 



SECTION III. THE SCIENTIFICALLY UNTRAINED ADULT. 



7. Prior to the formation of mental associations connected 

 with events in his life, the child does not deliberate. In the 

 course of growing older, however, he gains an enormous stock 



