In the Assuming trade three separate and independent cults are
transacting business. Two of these cults are known as the Shakespearites
and the Baconians, and I am the other one--the Brontosaurian.
The Shakespearite knows that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare's Works; the
Baconian knows that Francis Bacon wrote them; the Brontosaurian doesn't
really know which of them did it, but is quite composedly and contentedly
sure that Shakespeare _didn't_, and strongly suspects that Bacon _did_.
We all have to do a good deal of assuming, but I am fairly certain that
in every case I can call to mind the Baconian assumers have come out
ahead of the Shakespearites. Both parties handle the same materials, but
the Baconians seem to me to get much more reasonable and rational and
persuasive results out of them than is the case with the Shakespearites.
The Shakespearite conducts his assuming upon a definite principle, an
unchanging and immutable law--which is: 2 and 8 and 7 and 14, added
together, make 165. I believe this to be an error. No matter, you
cannot get a habit-sodden Shakespearite to cipher-up his materials upon
any other basis. With the Baconian it is different. If you place before
him the above figures and set him to adding them up, he will never in any
case get more than 45 out of them, and in nine cases out of ten he will
get just the proper 31.
Let me try to illustrate the two systems in a simple and homely way
calculated to bring the idea within the grasp of the ignorant and
unintelligent. We will suppose a case: take a lap-bred, house-fed,
uneducated, inexperienced kitten; take a rugged old Tom that's scarred
from stem to rudder-post with the memorials of strenuous experience, and
is so cultured, so educated, so limitlessly erudite that one may say of
him "all cat-knowledge is his province"; also, take a mouse. Lock the
three up in a holeless, crackless, exitless prison-cell. Wait half an
hour, then open the cell, introduce a Shakespearite and a Baconian, and
let them cipher and assume. The mouse is missing: the question to be
decided is, where is it? You can guess both verdicts beforehand. One
verdict will say the kitten contains the mouse; the other will as
certainly say the mouse is in the tomcat.
The Shakespearite will Reason like this--(that is not my word, it is
his). He will say the kitten _may have been_ attending school when
nobody was noticing; therefore _we are warranted in assuming_ that it did
so; also, it _could have been_ training in a court-clerk's office when no
one was noticing; since that could have happened, _we are justified in
assuming_ that it did happen; it _could have studied catology in a
garret_ when no one was noticing--therefore it _did_; it _could have_
attended cat-assizes on the shed-roof nights, for recreation, when no one
was noticing, and harvested a knowledge of cat court-forms and cat
lawyer-talk in that way: it _could_ have done it, therefore without a
doubt it did; it could have gone soldiering with a war-tribe when no one
was noticing, and learned soldier-wiles and soldier-ways, and what to do
with a mouse when opportunity offers; the plain inference, therefore is,
that that is what it _did_. Since all these manifold things _could_ have
occurred, we have _every right to believe_ they did occur. These
patiently and painstakingly accumulated vast acquirements and competences
needed but one thing more--opportunity--to convert themselves into
triumphant action. The opportunity came, we have the result; _beyond
shadow of question_ the mouse is in the kitten.
It is proper to remark that when we of the three cults plant a "_We think
we may assume_," we expect it, under careful watering and fertilizing and
tending, to grow up into a strong and hardy and weather-defying "_there
isn't a shadow of a doubt_" at last--and it usually happens.
We know what the Baconian's verdict would be: "_There is not a rag of
evidence that the kitten has had any training_, _any education_, _any
experience qualifying it for the present occasion_, _or is indeed
equipped for any achievement above lifting such unclaimed milk as comes
its way_; _but there is abundant evidence_--_unassailable proof_, _in
fact_--_that the other animal is equipped_, _to the last detail_, _with
every qualification necessary for the event_. _Without shadow of doubt
the tomcat contains the mouse_."