200 PART IV. PREPARATORY STAGE. 



objects noted. Finally, each of the minutest features of the table, 

 etc., will offer further points of departure for generalising. 



We have reached the second stage. Observing, for instance, 

 a notice relating to fares in an omnibus, the student generalises 

 to all omnibuses, then to tramcars, to other vehicles plying for 

 hire, to railways, and to craft for water and air. He further 

 generalises, in detail, to all possible places, like theatres, where 

 prices might be affixed in a convenient situation. He then 

 generalises, also in detail, the idea of notices on any topic 

 being posted in all private and public places all over the world 

 where such notices might prove advantageous. He proceeds 

 further and extends, in detail, the term notice to any statement 

 be it spoken, written, printed, engraved, tabular, diagrammatic, 

 symbolical, or otherwise. Having attained his end thus far, he 

 resumes his experimental practice by noting one after another 

 the innumerable constituent features of the omnibus and then 

 of other objects or of events, and treats them as he treated 

 the omnibus notice relating to omnibus fares. This also satis- 

 factorily disposed of, he commences to particularise, generalising, 

 say, the many aspects of the notice-board its material, its size, 

 its shape, its colour, its letters and figures, its total content, 

 its position in the omnibus, and so forth, and passes in this 

 way from object to object and from event to event. 



We envisage now the third stage strictly methodical genera- 

 lisation. Here we proceed as in the second stage, save that 

 we act methodically. That is, if it be the notice relating to 

 fares in the omnibus, the moment we think of generalising this 

 matter, we imagine the humblest and shabbiest vehicle, and 

 cautiously and methodically continue to apply the generalisation 

 until we picture to ourselves the most gigantic and most sump- 

 tuously furnished ocean liner. We then resume as methodically, 

 but this time in a methodical order, all the other lines of en- 

 quiry intimated or implied in the preceding paragraph. 



Only one further step is needed to complete the methodological 

 training, and this is to convert the aimless and indiscriminate 

 generalising into purposeful and discriminating generalising. 

 That is, returning again to the notice-board, we judge how far 

 and to what extent the notice particularising fares is justified 

 in the given omnibus at the given time, and how far we may 

 profitably generalise this particular mode of communicating 

 information. Repeating, on this higher plane, what has been 

 attempted on lower planes, there is every likelihood that 

 numerous valid and valuable generalisations will be obtained. 



Thus we learn that the habit of methodical generalising can 

 be readily acquired, and, by implication, that if men commonly 

 generalise sporadically and unmethodically, this is most probably 

 incidental to the absence of appropriate training. 



Needless to state that the procedure proposed in connection 

 with generalising should be also pursued in respect of all the 



