BEASONINQ. 365 



readied iu such cases as when we say certain English art 

 critics' writing reminds us of a close room in which pastilles 

 have been burning, or that the mind of certain Frenchmen 

 is like old Eoquefort cheese. Here language utterly fails 

 to hit upon the basis of resemblance. 



Over immense departments of our thought we are still, 

 all of us, in the savage state. Similarity operates in us, but 

 abstraction has not taken place. We know what the pres- 

 ent case is like, we know what it reminds us of, we have an 

 intuition of the right course to take, if it be a practical mat- 

 ter. But analytic thought has made no tracks, and we can- 

 not justify ourselves to others. In ethical, psychological, 

 and aesthetic matters, to give a clear reason for one's judg- 

 ment is universally recognized as a mark of rare genius. 

 The helplessness of uneducated people to account for their 

 likes and dislikes is often ludicrous. Ask the first Irish 

 girl why she likes this country better or worse than her 

 home, and see how much she can tell you. But if you ask 

 your most educated friend why he prefers Titian to Paul 

 Veronese, you will hardly get more of a reply; and you will 

 probably get absolutely none if you inquire why Beethoven 

 reminds him of Michael Angelo, or how it comes that a 

 bare figure with unduly flexed joints, by the latter, can so 

 suggest the moral tragedy of life. His thought obeys a 

 nexus, but cannot name it. And so it is with all those judg- 

 ments of experts, which even though unmotived are so valu- 

 able. Saturated with experience of a particular class of 

 materials, an expert intuitively feels whether a newly-re- 

 ported fact is probable or not, whether a proposed hypoth- 

 esis is worthless or the reverse. He instinctively knows 

 that, in a novel case, this and not that will be the promising 

 course of action. The well-known story of the old judge 

 advising the new one never to give reasons for his decisions, 

 " the decisions will probably be right, the reasons will surely 

 be wrong," illustrates this. The doctor will feel that the 

 patient is doomed, the dentist will have a premonition that 

 the tooth will break, though neither can articulate a reason 

 for his foreboding. The reason lies imbedded, but not yet 

 laid bare, in all the countless previous cases dimly sug- 

 gested by the actual one, all calling up the same conclusion. 



