334 PART V. WORKING STAGE. 



rival to railways and rendering equally accessible every part of 

 every country. Similarly, the prevention of energy waste, the 

 irrigation of the land (more particularly in tropical countries), 

 the successful combating of insect and germ pests, the scientific 

 re-organisation of the industrial and commercial life, and the 

 development of wireless telegraphy and telephony, will soon 

 grow into problems grappled with by mighty national and inter- 

 national endeavours. In fact, we may look forward to a time 

 when numerous problems of every type affecting countries as 

 a whole will be dealt with nationally and with the required 

 breadth of outlook. The World War began universally by the 

 declaration of a national moratorium which saved the financial 

 systems of the countries involved from collapsing, and was 

 carried on by every country with such comparatively great 

 success because of the bold statesmanship exhibited in dealing 

 with internal problems of a colossal magnitude. 



168. (e) NUMEROUS GENERALISATIONS. It is a uni- 

 versal temptation in the personal affairs of life, in the various 

 social problems, in the biological and even the physical sciences, 

 to think that a particular truth which we have found, or deem 

 that we have found, explains everything or will set everything 

 right. Much of the existing conservatism and fanaticism is due 

 to the exaggerated value placed on a particular truth, the tacit 

 assumption being that if something interprets or promotes any- 

 thing, it must interpret and promote everything in its peculiar 

 sphere, say in education, politics, or jurisprudence. On the 

 contrary, not every important generalisation is de facto a com- 

 prehensive, let alone an all-comprehensive, generalisation, and 

 until a generalisation is indisputably established as all-embrac- 

 ing, we should definitely and consciously assume that many 

 particular truths, rather than one of this class, explain a group 

 of facts or vitally promote an object. 



For instance, the author might have regarded the process of 

 generalising as the only one of moment in methodology, or he 

 might have assumed that a methodology comprehending obser- 

 vation, generalisation, and deduction, exhausted the subject. 

 However, numerous as are his main divisions, it is eminently 

 probable that criticism would reveal not a few unanticipated 

 divisions. The fact is that an ideal methodology is as yet im- 

 possible, and that we need therefore not only aim at reaching 

 the most comprehensive and ideally most simple generalisations, 

 but compromise and be ready to attain to numerous, somewhat 

 complicated and imperfectly connected facts and generalisations. 

 Indeed, the final methodological ideal is fully as useful and 

 fully as unreal as that of the geometrician. 



169. (/) FULL GENERALISATIONS. A generalisation, 

 to be of serious import, should be full, as well as wide and im- 

 portant. To assert, for instance, that gravitation or terrestrial 

 attraction explains the phenomenon of weight, that electricity 



