SECTION 20. STUDIES PREPARATORY TO ALL INVESTIGATIONS. 189 



investigation has been thorough, attempts to frame preliminary 

 conclusions would be in place. In that case, however, most 

 of the conclusions of any one worker would largely miss the 

 mark, and investigators would construe the data according to 

 widely varying principles. In fact, as we sought in the first 

 stage mainly for facts, so in the second we seek for the largest 

 number of conclusions which appear, after scrutiny, passably 

 consistent with the facts. With weighty facts and preliminary 

 conclusions collected, the third step may be ventured on, by 

 probably a fresh relay of investigators, of sifting these con- 

 clusions. Lastly comes the process of consolidating and perfect- 

 ing these conclusions, drawing pregnant inferences from them, 

 and re-examining the data. Everywhere great difficulties which 

 might needlessly absorb years of labour should be left unsolved, 

 unless we can effect nothing without attacking these. Mere 

 amassing of facts, formulating conclusions when the facts are 

 yet hardly known, elaborating some single conclusion - when 

 few conclusions have been as yet obtained, should be avoided. 

 The leading ethnographical verities will only come to the surface 

 through the collective labours of generations of ethnographic 

 students. 



To sum up. We ascertain the more general facts and the 

 more general conditions under which these subsist; we study 

 the collected facts with a view to reaching a fair number of 

 important minor and then major conclusions; we leave at first 

 undisturbed refractory questions or solutions exacting lengthy 

 enquiries; we further assume that familiarity with some class 

 of fact or theory will make other classes of facts or theories 

 appear of less moment than they seem to us; and we take it 

 for granted that an individual's investigation of a large and 

 new problem possesses almost certainly only partial or con- 

 tributory value. 



Each scholar, then, is concerned with a limited sphere of 

 investigation, and strives to discover the largest number of the 

 most important or most general facts and conclusions in con- 

 formity with the stage which his science or enquiry has reached. 

 Seeing the complexity of facts, this entails continuous devotion 

 for many years to one significant problem, and never entering 

 more into detail than is absolutely necessitated by the circum- 

 stances. Our leading thinkers, from Aristotle forwards, appear 

 to have followed the rule (1) of concentrating for long periods 

 (2) on reaching many weighty conclusions (3) in a particular 

 subject of fair extent, (4) which is either easy of approach or 

 where many facts have been already collected and colligated, 

 and (5) eschewing all vagueness, subtlety, argumentation, or 

 crude speculation as to matters obscure or unknown. 



