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PART V WORKING STAGE. 



habitually a highly complex compound already tainted with an 

 interpretation which is convenient only for practical purposes. 

 As Jevons (Principles of Science, p. 506) contends: "A pheno- 

 menon which seems simple is, in all probability, really complex, 

 and unless the mind is actively engaged in looking for particular 

 details, it is likely that the critical circumstances will be passed 

 over."' And in another place he asserts that "the progress of 

 science depends on the study of exceptional phenomena". (Ibid., 

 p. 644.) Sir John Herschel spoke without hesitancy when ad- 

 verting to the attitude of the scientific thinker: "He will have his 

 eyes as it were opened, that they may be struck at once with 

 any occurrence which, according to received theories, ought not 

 to happen, for these", he significantly adds, "are the facts which 

 serve as clues to new discoveries." (Discourse, [127.].) Without 

 alertly watching for exceptions to supposed laws, we are not 

 likely to discover the primary constituents and factors. 



138. (B) Simple Facts regarded as Complex. We should 

 also specifically guard against the opposite misapprehension of 

 surmising complexity where there is simplicity. This is too 

 evident to need labouring. The Universe is a multiverse to 

 the mass of mankind. At one time the hundreds of thousands 

 of species were accounted for by special creation; the tower 

 of Babel was evolved to explain the diversity of tongues ; and 

 earth, moon, sun, and planets were regarded as independent 

 entities. The layman sees innumerable kinds of rock where 

 the geologist discerns only sandstone, granite, and limestone; 

 he counts many orders of clouds where the meteorologist dis- 

 tinguishes only three cirrus, cumulus, and stratus; he opines 

 numerous ways of communicating heat where the physicist 

 speaks of conduction, convection, and radiation; he conceives 

 sunstroke as only due to heat, when chemical and other factors 

 are involved ; he assumes diamond, graphite, lamp black, and pure 

 charcoal to be essentially different, when they are each forms of 

 carbon ; and he sees bodies, where the chemist recognises com- 

 pound molecules and the biologist compound cells. So, again, the 

 older chemists rigidly separated inorganic from organic chemistry, 

 the latter being dependent, according to them, on a vital principle ; 

 and now compounds are found to be related to higher com- 

 pounds as elements or radicles. The polygenetic theory of races 

 had many defenders, and in social matters special explanations for 

 individual occurrences, such as individual idleness or stupidity, 

 are proffered where general explanations economic chaos or 

 an unsatisfactory educational system, for instance are rightly 

 in place. If we analyse, again, an emotion, we shall probably 

 note that the definition properly comprises a mental excitement 

 aroused directly by some definite disturbing object or idea, 

 accompanied by a concomitant physical excitement, and ex- 

 cludes a host of facts usually included through inadequate 

 analysis -such as natural inclination, sentiment, temperament, 



