52 
JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY 
[Vol. 13 
for study, the collecting of experimental data, the formulation of 
hypotheses, the trial of these while withholding judgment and finally 
the proposal of a conclusion which we have found to stand trial and 
test. There is much of interest and suggestion in these steps. 
The stage by which we recognize the existence of a problem is 
presumably automatic. It is automatic because there are so many 
unanswered questions to perplex daily life. Some of these are bound 
to press upon our consciousness, clamoring for solution. We are not 
aware of all of them for the reason that we have grown accustomed to 
accepting many things as they are. 
Out of the multitude we select a specific question to which our 
energies shall be devoted. This essential preliminary step is not 
always easily accomplished. Various questions are complexly inter¬ 
related. We must unravel some of these intricacies. We must pare 
our subject here and there, in order to reduce it to usable size. 
Then begins the step of collecting data. We are now to set ourselves 
patiently to observe facts and to record them. But that is not all. 
The facts must constantly be observed in the light of their possible 
relationship, for the ultimate object of our inquiry is a matter of 
causes and, therefore, of principles and laws. Mentally, we have in 
this a somewhat delicate balance to maintain, for we must be pains¬ 
takingly accurate yet must not become wrapped up in detail to the 
exclusion of wider truths, we must demand that which is concrete and 
specific while searching for that which is abstract and generic, we must 
be skeptical yet possessed of an open mind. Neucomen was searching 
for truth and demanding fact as he went about his study of the steam 
engine. But his open mind flashed to him an interpretation when his 
apparatus performed in unexpected manner, and the result was the 
principle of condensation by means of a jet. 
In the light of our accumulated data we propose our tentative 
theories and in this we shall need all that we possess of constructive, 
resourceful imagination. Sometimes we speak of imagination as if it 
were a handicap to a scientific worker, a faculty to be sternly repressed 
and stifled. There could be no greater error. A well-ordered power of 
conjecture is a precious attribute. Observation alone is not sufficient. 
Facts by themselves do not disclose relationships. All of the observ¬ 
able facts in the world, unillumined by imagination, would never have 
disclosed the causes of insect fluctuations, the laws of the procession of 
the planets or the possibility of liquid hydrogen. Only when winged by 
conjecture, can the mind cross the void from fact to relationship. 
“The imagination/’ said President Eliot, “is the greatest of human 
powers, no matter in what field it works—in art or literature, in 
mechanical invention, in science, government, commerce or religion; 
