SECTION 22.OBSER VA TION. 293 



to be incorporated in the rule, the shaping of the sentence would 

 commence. The author had spent over a hundred hours on 

 determining on a convenient phrasing, whereas two hours, 

 perhaps, would have sufficed if methodological rules had been 

 throughout respected. 



Many are the causes for the slow and erratic workings of 

 the concrete intelligence. Methodological canons are only 

 fitfully applied. Owing to a poor vocabulary and an anarchic 

 memory, we are obliged to hunt for the right word. Fa- 

 scinated by our ideas, we fail to employ terms in their normal 

 connotations. Only partially trained in expressing ourselves 

 correctly, it is with infinite pains we convey to others, or 

 even to ourselves, what we mean. Not proceeding systemati- 

 cally, we fumble and stumble, and waste long stretches of time. 

 Reaching the end of our scanty resources, our mind becomes 

 a blank for a moment, and unconsciously the trend of our 

 meditations has changed, and perhaps a considerable time elapses 

 before we return to our subject. Or we build castles in the 

 air instead of on the solid rock, ignoring or slurring over 

 difficulties. Thus, in the absence of thorough methodological 

 training, the mind is a medley of disjointed irrelevancies, and 

 the quantity and quality of our cogitations are of the poorest. 

 Indeed, it is probable that, so far as the concrete intelligence 

 is concerned, there will be in the methodologically trained future 

 a saving of perhaps ninety-five per cent, of time in enquiries. 



If, then, observation is to be truly scientific, it is imperative 

 that the concrete process of intellection, as it passes from 

 moment to moment, shall be controlled and guided in all its 

 aspects and phases by methodological canons of an irreproach- 

 able character. This presupposes adequate theoretical and prac- 

 tical methodological training from an early age until the mind 

 grows into an ordered unity, responding automatically to the 

 varied needs of a situation. 



CONCLUSION 19. 

 Need of Ensuring Easy, Exhaustive, and Impartial Observation. 



146. This Conclusion professes to provide the assistance 

 required to secure with ease abundant material for investigation, 

 and to defeat subjective influences. 



(a) In dealing with matters psychological, anthropological, 

 historical, ethical, economical, meteorological, etc. wherever 

 changes are relatively rapid or where objects of the same class 

 are likely to vary a day-to-day rule is of conspicuous ad- 

 vantage. If, accordingly, we desired to learn something of the 

 ordinary life lived by some tribe or nation, we pursue for some 

 days the perambulations of a few average persons of that tribe 

 or nation, from the moment they rise in the morning to the 

 moment when they rise the succeeding day. We are thus in a 



