SECTION 23. GENERALISATION. 343 



practically of equal value. Towards the close of the enquiry, 

 when verification is easy and misapprehensions are difficult, 

 the conclusions will be gradually valuated, graded, developed, 

 connected, completed, the paramount factors will be isolated, 

 and a point of view elaborated. For instance, the present author, 

 in writing his Mind of Man, launched upon his examination 

 of the chief psychological categories current, without reference 

 to any hypothesis concerning their nature, and he is at a loss 

 to conceive why in the investigation of any ordinary problem, 

 except for directive purposes, one should seek to anticipate the 

 final conclusion or expect that such anticipation will be con- 

 firmed by the examination. Are the secrets of nature and of 

 life to be more easily elicited by sheer speculation than the 

 melodies which may be charmed out of a violin? The answer 

 of history on this point is conclusive. 



CONCLUSION 27. 



Need of Exhausting the Degree of Applicability of a Conclusion 

 within and between Divisions, and also of Extending it to Parallel, 

 Distantly Related, Seemingly Unrelated, Pure, Normal, Minimal, 

 Maximal, Deviating, Morbid, Eccentric, Border, and Transitional 



Instances. 



174. (A) DEGREE-DETERMINATION.-Bacon, in his 

 analysis of the nature of heat, allowed for degrees of heat. 

 The use here proposed of the term Degree, however, extends 

 further, for in Bacon's analysis we should have gradually passed 

 from intense heat to imperceptible heat and thence to percep- 

 tible cold and intense cold, thus challenging his assumption 

 that heat and cold are separable facts; and we should have 

 been obliged to proceed even beyond and inquired as to whether 

 temperature represents a simple quality or a mixture or complex 

 of qualities, and how far it is one of a series of related 

 qualities how far it is, for instance, related to light and electri- 

 city. Similarly, the common notion that attention intensifies a 

 mental state, loses its meaning when this Conclusion is applied, 

 for attention proves to be merely an alternative term for 

 direction and relative concentration of mental activity. If an 

 assertion is made concerning a certain class of objects, we 

 ought to call into question its extending so far, and also learn 

 whether it does not extend indefinitely farther. A Conclusion 

 such as the present one will probably transpire to be most 

 valuable by sometimes narrowing the compass of a generalisation, 

 but more frequently in greatly extending its scope. It may be 

 automatically applied where contrasts are or may be brought 

 in question, such as once and always, one and everything, con- 

 cretest detail and abstractest generality, particular and universal, 

 simple and complex, large and small, far and near, light and 

 heavy, white and black, summer and winter, good and bad, 

 ignorant and well-informed, beautiful and ugly. 



