SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXI. No. 



here to it. That there may be many lines 

 of approach to a given result, if that result 

 be a general condition, is a hard lesson 

 for mankind to learn. 



If it is so difficult to get at the real fac- 

 tors of a simple result in the laboratory, 

 and still more difficult to interpret the 

 significance of factors when found, in 

 what condition must we be in reference to 

 the immensely more complex problems that 

 confront us in social organization, govern- 

 ment, education and religion, especially 

 when it is added that the vast majority of 

 those who have offered answers to these 

 problems have had no conception of the 

 difficulties involved in reaching truth? 

 The proper effect of such knowledge is not 

 ■despair, but an attentive and receptive 

 mind. 



The prevailing belief among the un- 

 trained is that any result may be explained 

 by some single factor operating as a cause. 

 They seem to have no conception of the 

 fact that the cause of every result is made 

 up of a combination of interacting factors, 

 often in numbers and combinations that are 

 absolutely bewildering to contemplate. 

 An enthusiast discovers some one thing 

 which he regards and perhaps all right- 

 thinking people regard as an evil in so- 

 ciety or in government, and straightway 

 this explains for him the whole of our 

 present unhappy condition. This particu- 

 lar tare must be rooted up, and rooted up 

 immediately, without any thought as to 

 the possible destruction of the plants we 

 must cultivate. 



This habit of considering only one fac- 

 tor, when perhaps many are involved, in- 

 dicates a very primitive and untrained 

 condition of mind. It is fortunate when 

 the leaders of public sentiment have got- 

 ten hold of one real factor. They may 

 overdo it, and work damage by insisting 

 upon some special form of action on ac- 



count of it, but so far as it goes it is the 

 truth. It is more apt to be the case, how- 

 ever, that the factor claimed holds no re- 

 lation whatsoever to the result. This is 

 where political demagoguery gets in its 

 most unrighteous work, and is the soil in 

 which the noxious weeds of destructive 

 socialism, charlatanism and religious cant 

 flourish. 



3. It keeps oim close to the facts. — 

 There seems to be abroad a notion that one 

 may start with a single well-attested fact, 

 and by some logical machinery construct 

 an elaborate system and reach an authentic 

 conclusion, much as the world has imagined 

 that Cuvier could do if a single bone were 

 furnished him. The result is bad, even 

 though the fact may have an unclouded 

 title. But it happens too often that great 

 superstructures have been reared upon a 

 fact wliich is claimed rather than demon- 

 strated. Facts are like stepping stones; 

 so long as one can get a reasonably close 

 series of them he can make some progress 

 in a given direction, but when he steps 

 beyond them he flounders. As one travels 

 away from a fact its significance in any 

 conclusion becomes more and more attenu- 

 ated, until presently the vanishing point is 

 reached, like the rays of light from a 

 candle. A fact is really influential only in 

 its own immediate vicinity; but the whole 

 structure of many a system lies in the 

 region beyond the vanishing point. 



Such ' ' vain imaginings ' ' are delightfully 

 seductive to many people, whose life and 

 conduct are even shaped by them. I have 

 been amazed at the large development of 

 this phase of emotional insanity, commonly 

 masquerading under the name of "subtle 

 thinking." Perhaps the name is expres- 

 sive enough, if it means thinking without 

 any material for thought. And is not 

 this one great danger of our educational 

 schemes, when special stress is laid upon 



