SECTION 20. STUDIES PREPARATORY TO ALL INVESTIGATIONS. 199 



Here are a few detailed injunctions relating to self-training 

 at all periods of life: 



(a) Follow precedent, follow the best precedents; 

 (6) Follow example, follow the best examples; 



(c) Learn by the experience of others, learn by your own 

 experience ; 



(d) Inquire of, and consult with, others; 



(e) Profit by what is revealed by accident or special circum- 

 stances ; 



(/) Learn through appropriate, and increasingly profounder, 

 reading and study; 



(gr) Learn through frequently, and sometimes systematically, 

 reflecting over work, its minor and major problems, with a view 

 to its improvement; 



(h) Experiment both on a limited and on an extensive scale; 



(/) Seek to improve on, and generalise as widely as possible, 

 what you have learnt through precedent, example, experience, 

 enquiry and consultation, accident and special circumstances, 

 reading and study, frequent and also systematic reflection, and 

 experiments; and 



(y) Continue all your life improving methods and products 

 by the above and by other means. 



CONCLUSION 9. 

 Need of Experimental Preparation in Methodology. 



87. The habit of methodical scientific procedure, a habit 

 than which it would be difficult to conceive one more important 

 to acquire, should be easily attainable by the student. 



Consider the problem of generalisation. At the lowest stage 

 of training this would require habitual generalising as such. To 

 acquire this art, the student might proceed as follows. Sitting 

 in a room, he may, following the principle embodied in Con- 

 clusion 25, generalise everything he sees or hears. Thus "It 

 would be well if every sitting-room everywhere had a table, 

 had chairs, had a sofa, had pictures, had maps, had a globe, 

 had books, had wall paper, had central heating, had a carpet, 

 had rugs, had a door, had windows, had electric light, had a 

 clock, had ornaments", and so on with every object in the 

 room, and also with any sounds, such as that of the tickings 

 of the clock. This process may be repeated with every part 

 of the building, and may be then continued, on a monster scale, 

 with the world as revealed by tours round the town and country 

 and by examining the various senses and the furniture of the 

 mind. No doubt, before everything observed had been general- 

 ised in this crude way, the student will be obsessed by the 

 desire to generalise everything. After this, we may particularise 

 intensively before generalising. The table, that is, becomes a 

 specific kind of table, and so with the chairs, and with all other 



