from which they dive into a bottomless sea of speculation. They pride
themselves on their ability to jump at conclusions, forgetting that
jumping is an exercise in which the lower orders excel their betters.
If an elephant could jump as far, in proportion to his weight, as a
flea, there would be no holding him on the planet. Every new discovery
is followed by a dozen extravagances, engineered by the Get-wise-quick
people. There is always some Young Napoleon of Philosophy who
undertakes to corner the truth-market. It’s like what happened at the
opening of Oklahoma Territory. Before the day set by the government
when they all were to start fair in their race for farms, a band of
adventurers called ‘Sooners’ smuggled themselves across the line.
When the _bona fide_ settler arrived on his quarter-section, he found
an impudent Sooner in possession. You can’t find any fresh field of
investigation that isn’t claimed by these Sooners. It all comes because
people are no longer educated logically.”
* * * * *
When Scholasticus was in this mood, it was difficult to do anything
with him. It was in vain to tell him that he was narrow, for, like
all narrow men, he took that as a compliment. It is the broad way, he
reminded me, that leads to intellectual destruction. Still, I attempted
to bring him to a better frame of mind.
“Scholasticus,” said I, “the old order changes. You are a survivor of
another period. You were educated according to a logical order. You
learned to spell out of a Spelling Book, and to read out of a Reader,
and to write not by following the dictates of your own conscience,
but by following the copy in a Copy Book; and you learned to speak
correctly by committing to memory the rules of grammar and afterwards
the exceptions.”
“And it was a good way, too,” interrupted Scholasticus. “It gave us a
respect for law and order, to learn the rules and to abide by them.
Now, I understand, they don’t have grammar, but ‘language work.’ The
idea is, I suppose, that if the pupils practice the exceptions they
needn’t bother about the rules. When I studied geography, we began with
a definition of the word geography, after which we were told that the
earth is a planet, and that three fourths of its surface is water, a
fact which I have never forgotten. Nowadays they hold that geography,
like charity, should begin at home, so the first thing is to make a
geodetic survey of the back yard. By the time they work up to the fact
that the earth is a planet, the pupils have learned so many other
things that it makes very little impression on their minds.”
“Scholasticus,” said I, “I was saying the old order changes lest one
good custom should corrupt the educational world. They were great
people for rules in your day. It was an inheritance from the past.
You remember the anecdote of Ezekiel Cheever, head master of the
Boston Latin School, who taught Cotton Mather Latin. A pupil writes,
‘My master found fault with the syntax of one word, which was not so
used heedlessly, but designedly, and therefore I told him there was a
plain grammar rule for it. He angrily replied that there was no such
rule. I took the grammar and showed the rule to him. Then he said,
“Thou art a brave boy. I had forgot the rule.”’ That takes us back to
a time when there was a superstitious reverence for rules. We don’t
reason so rigidly from rules now, we develop the mind according to
a chronological rather than a logical order. We let the ideas come
according to the order of nature.”
At this, the wrath of Scholasticus bubbled over. “‘The order of
nature’! The nature of what? A cabbage head grows according to an order
natural to cabbages. But a rational intelligence is developed according
to the laws of reason. The first thing is to formulate the laws, and
then to obey them. Logic has to do with the laws of rational thought,
just as grammar has to do with the laws of correct speech. Nowadays,
the teacher seems to be afraid of laying down the law. I visited a
model school the other day. It wasn’t a school at all, according to
the definition in the old-fashioned book I used to read: ‘A school
is a place where children go to study books. The good children when
they have learned their lessons go out to play, the idle remain and
are punished.’ According to the modern method, it is the teacher who
must remain to be punished for the idleness of her pupils. It’s her
business to make the lessons interesting. If their attention wanders,
she is held responsible. The teacher must stay after hours and plan new
strategic moves. She must ‘by indirections find directions out,’--while
the pupil is resisting one form of instruction, she suddenly teaches
him something else. In this way the pupil’s wits are kept on the run.
No matter how they scatter, there is the teacher before him.”
“Why is not that a good way?” I said. “It certainly brings results. The
pupil gets on rapidly. He learns a lesson before he knows it.”
“He never does know it,” growled Scholasticus. “And what’s worse, he
doesn’t know that he doesn’t know it. By this painless method he has
never been compelled to charge his mind with it and to reason it out.
And besides, it’s death on the teacher. Ezekiel Cheever taught that
Boston Latin School till he was over ninety years old, and never had
a touch of nervous prostration. He didn’t have to lie awake planning
how to hold the rapt attention of his pupils. If there was any chance
of the grammar rules not being learned, he let them do the worrying.
It was good for them. There was a race of sturdy thinkers in those
days. They knew how to deal with knotty problems. If they survived the
school, they could not be downed in the town meeting.”
“Scholasticus,” I said, “I don’t like the way you talk. The trouble
with you is that you took your education too hard. I fancy that I see
every lesson you ever learned sticking out of your consciousness like
the piles of stones in a New Hampshire pasture. They are monuments of
industry, but they lack a certain suavity. You are doing what most
Americans do,--whenever they find anything wrong they lay the blame
on the public schools. Just because some of the younger men at your
club argue somewhat erratically, you blame the whole modern system of
education. It’s a way you clever people have,--you are not content with
one good and sufficient reason for your statement of fact. You must
reinforce it by another of a more general character. It makes me feel
as I do when, a faucet needing a new washer, I send for a plumber,--and
behold twain! One would be enough, if he would attend strictly to
business. Every system has its failures. If that of the present day
seems to have more than its share, it is because its failures are still
in evidence, while those of your generation are mostly forgotten.
Oblivion is a deft housemaid, who tidies up the chambers of the Past,
by sweeping all the dust into the dark corners. On the other hand, you
drop into the Present amid the disorder of the spring cleaning, when
everything is out on the line. If you could recall the shining lights
in your Logic class, you might admit that some of them had the form of
reasoning without the power thereof. It was in your day, wasn’t it,
that the criticism was made on the undergraduate thesis:--
Although he wrote it all by rote,
He did not write it right.
I couldn’t help thinking of those lines when I was listening just
now to your reasoning. The real point, Scholasticus, is this, which
seems to have escaped you. You talk of the laws of the mind. When
you were in college it seemed a very simple thing to formulate these
laws. There was no Child Psychology, giving way before you knew it to
Adolescence, where everything was quite different. There was no talk
about subliminal consciousness, where you couldn’t tell which was
consciousness and which was something else. The mind in your day came
in one standard size.”
“Yes,” said Scholasticus, “when we were in the Academy, we had Watts on
the Mind. Watts treated his subject in a straightforward way; he had
nothing about nervous reactions; he gave us plain Mind. When we got
into college we had Locke on the Understanding. When it was time to
take account of conscience, we had Paley’s ‘Moral Science.’ This, with
the ‘Evidences,’ made a pretty good preparation for life.”
“So it did,” I said, “and you have done credit to your training. But
since that time Psychologists have made a number of discoveries which
render it necessary to revise the old methods.”
Seeing that he, for the first time, was giving me his attention, I
thought that it might be possible to win him away from that futile and
acrid criticism of the present course of events, which is the besetting
sin of men of his age, to the more fruitful criticism by creation.
“Scholasticus,” I said, “here is your opportunity. You complain that
Logic is going out. The trouble is that it has been taught in an
antiquated way. The logicians followed the analogy of mathematics. They
invented all sorts of formal figures and diagrams, and were painfully
abstract. When you were learning to reason, you had to commit to memory
a formula like this: ‘Every y is x; every z is y; therefore every z is
x. _E.g._, let the major term (which is represented by x) be “One who
possesses all virtue,” the minor term (z) “Every man who possesses one
virtue,” and the middle term (y) “Every man who possesses prudence,”
and you have the celebrated argument of Aristotle that “the virtues are
inseparable.”’
“Now you can’t make the youth of this generation submit to that kind of
argumentation. They are willing to admit the virtues are inseparable,
if you say so, but they are not going to take time to figure it out.
You can’t arouse their interest by demonstrating that ‘If A is B, C
is D, C is not D, therefore A is not B.’ They say, ‘What of it?’ They
refuse to concern themselves about the fate of letters of the alphabet.
Such methods prejudice them against Logic. They prefer not to reason
at all, rather than do it in such an old-fashioned way. Besides, they
have peeped into the Psychology for Teachers, and they know their
rights. Such teaching is not good pedagogics. The youthful mind must be
shielded from abstractions; if it is not, there’s no knowing what might
happen. It will not do to go at your subject in such a brutal way.
This is the age of the concrete and the vital. Things are observed in
the state of nature. The birds must be in the bush, and the fishes in
the water, and the flowers must be caught in the very act of growing.
That’s what makes them interesting. If the youthful mind is to be
induced to love Nature, Nature must do her prettiest for the youthful
mind. Otherwise it will be found that the mental vacuum abhors Nature.
“If there is to be a revival of Logic, it must be attached to something
in which people are already interested. People are interested in
biological processes. They like to see things grow, and to help in the
process as far as they can without disturbing Nature. Why don’t you,
Scholasticus, try your hand at a text-book which shall insinuate a
sufficient knowledge of the principles of sound reasoning, under the
guise of Botany or Hygiene or Physical Culture, or some of the branches
that are more popular? I believe that you could make a syllogism as
interesting as anything else. All you have to do is to make people
think that it is something else.”
At the time Scholasticus only sniffed scornfully at my suggestion;
but not many days had passed before I began to notice a change in his
demeanor. Instead of his usual self-sufficiency, there came into his
eyes a wistful plea for appreciation. He had the chastened air of one
who no longer sits in the chair of the critic, but is awaiting the
moment when he shall endure criticism.
From such signs as these I inferred that Scholasticus was writing
a book. There is nothing that so takes the starch out of a man’s
intellect and reduces him to a state of abject dependence on the
judgment of his fellow beings as writing a book. For the first
question about a book is not, “Is it good?” but, “Will anybody read
it?” When this question is asked, the most commonplace individual
assumes a new importance. He represents the Public. The Author wonders
as to what manner of man he is. Will he like the Book?
I was not therefore surprised when one day Scholasticus, in a
shamefaced way, handed me the manuscript of a work entitled, “How to
Know the Fallacies; or Nature-Study in Logic.”
In these pages Scholasticus shows a sincere desire to adapt himself
to a new order of things. He no longer stands proudly on the
quarter-deck of the good ship Logic, with a sense of fathomless depths
of rationality under the keel. Logic is a poor old stranded wreck.
His work is like that of the Swiss Family Robinson: to carry off the
necessities of life and the more portable luxuries, and to use them in
setting up housekeeping on the new island of Nature-Study.
I cannot say that he has been entirely successful in making the art
of reasoning a pleasant out-of-door recreation. He has not altogether
overcome the stiffness which is the result of his early education. In
treating thought as if it were a vegetable, he does not always conceal
the fact that it is _not_ a vegetable. There are, therefore, occasional
jolts as he suddenly changes from one aspect of his subject to another.
I was, however, much pleased to see that, instead of ambitiously
attempting to treat of the processes of valid reasoning, he has been
content to begin with those forms of argumentation which are more
familiar.
His preface does what every good preface should do: it presents the
Author not at his worst nor at his best, but in a salvable condition,
so that the reader will say, “He is not such a bad fellow, after all,
and doubtless when he gets warmed up to his work he will do better.” It
may be as well to quote the Preface in full.
“Careless Reader, in the intervals between those wholesome recreations
which make up the more important portion of life, you may have
sometimes come upon a thought. It may have been only a tiny thoughtlet.
Slight as it was in itself, it was worthy of your attention, for it
was a living thing. Pushing its way out of the fertile soil of your
subconscious being, it had come timidly into the light of day. If it
seemed to you unusual, it was only because you have not cultivated the
habit of noticing such things. They are really very common.
“If you can spare the time, let us sit down together and pluck up the
thoughtlet by the roots and examine its structure. You may find some
pleasure, and perhaps a little profit, in these native growths of your
mind.
“When you take up a thought and pull it to pieces, you will see that
it is not so simple as it seems. It is in reality made up of several
thoughts joined together. When you try to separate them, you find
it difficult. The connective tissue which binds them together is
called inference. When several thoughts growing out of the same soil
are connected by inference, they form what is called an argument.
Arguments, as they are found in the state of Nature, are of two kinds;
those that hang together, and those that only seem to hang together;
these latter are called Fallacies.
“In former times they were treated as mere weeds and were mercilessly
uprooted. In these days we have learned to look upon them with a
kindlier eye. They have their uses, and serve to beautify many a spot
that otherwise would remain barren. They are the wild flowers of the
intellectual world. I do not intend to intrude my own taste or to pass
judgment on the different varieties; but only to show my readers how
to know the fallacies when they see them. It may be said that mere
nomenclature is of little value. So it is in itself; yet there is a
pleasure in knowing the names of the common things we meet every day.
The search for fallacies need never take one far afield. The collector
may find almost all the known varieties growing within his own
enclosure.
“Let us then go out in the sunshine into the pleasant field of thought.
There we see the arguments--valid and otherwise--as they are growing.
You will notice that every argument has three essential parts. First
is the root, called by the old logicians in their crabbed language the
Major Premise. Growing quite naturally out of this is the stem, called
the Minor Premise; and crowning that is the flower, with its seed
vessels which contain the potentialities of future arguments,--this is
called the Conclusion.
“Let the reader observe this argument: ‘Every horse is an animal;’
that is the root thought. ‘Sheep are not horses;’ that is the stem
shooting into the air. ‘Therefore, sheep are not animals;’ that is the
conclusion, the full corn in the ear.
“There is a pleasing impression of naturalness about the way in which
one thought grows out of that which immediately preceded it. There is
a sudden thrill when we come to the ‘therefore,’ the blossoming time
of the argument. We feel that we are entering into one of Nature’s
secret processes. Unless our senses are deceiving us, we are actually
reasoning.
“After a while, when curiosity and the pride of possession lead us to
look more carefully at our treasure, we are somewhat surprised. It is
not as it seemed. A little observation convinces us that, in spite of
our argumentation, sheep are animals, and always have been. Thus, quite
by accident, and through the unaided exercise of our own faculties, we
have come upon one of the most ancient forms of reasoning, one that has
engaged the attention of wise men since Aristotle,--a fallacy.”
In the opening chapters, Scholasticus gives a description of the more
common fallacies, with an account of their habits of growth and of the
soils in which they most flourish. “_Petitio Principii_, or begging the
question. This is a very pretty little fallacy of vine-like habit. It
is found growing beside old walls, and wherever it is not likely to be
disturbed. It is easily propagated from slips, each slip being capable
of indefinite multiplication, the terminal buds sending down new roots,
and the process of growth going on continuously. So tenacious is it
that it is practically impossible to eradicate the _petitio_, when once
it has fairly established itself. It recommends itself on the ground of
economy. In most arguments the attempt is made to prove one thing by
means of another thing. This, of course, involves a considerable waste
of good material. In begging the question, by means of one proposition
we are enabled to prove a proposition that is identical with it. In
this way an idea may be made to go a long way.
“The most familiar variety of this fallacy is that known as the
Argument in a Circle. To those who are fond of arguments, but who
can afford very little mind space for their cultivation, this is an
almost ideal fallacy. It requires only the slightest soil, deriving its
nutriment almost wholly from the air, and reproducing itself without
the slightest variation in type.
“Its hardiness and exuberant efflorescence make it desirable for many
purposes. It is useful as a screen to hide the more unsightly parts of
one’s intellectual grounds. Often, too, there may be an argumentative
structure that has fallen into decay. Its real reason for existence is
no longer obvious, yet it may have associations which make us reluctant
to tear it down. In such a case, nothing is easier than to plant a slip
of the circular argument. In a short time the old ruin becomes a bower,
covered with an exuberant efflorescence of rationality. This argument
is to be recommended for a Woman’s Hardy Garden of Fallacies.
“It is one which gives great pleasure to a home-loving person who finds
satisfaction in that which is his own. Often have I seen a householder
sitting under its sweet shade, well content. He was conscious of
having an argument which answered to all his needs, and which
protected him alike from the contradiction of sinners and from the
intrusive questioning of the more critical sort of saints. He had such
satisfaction as came to Jonah, when the booth he had constructed, with
such slight skill as belonged to an itinerant preacher, was covered by
the luxuriant gourd vine. Things were not going as he had expected in
Nineveh, and current events were discrediting his prophecies, but Jonah
‘rejoiced with great joy over the gourd.’
“I may be pardoned, in treating the circular argument, for deviating,
for a moment, from the field of botany into the neighboring field of
zoölogy. For after all, the same principles hold good there also,
and as we are forming the habit of looking at thought as a kind of
plant, we may also consider it as a kind of animal,--let us say, if
you please, a goldfish. You have often paused to watch the wonders of
marine life as epitomized in a glass globe upon your centre-table.
Those who go down to the sea in ships have doubtless seen more of the
surface of waters, but they have not the same facilities for looking
into its interior life that you have in your aquarium. A school of
goldfishes represent for you the finny monsters of the deep. You see
the whole world they move in. The encircling glass is the firmament
in the midst of the waters. The goldfishes go round and round, and
have a very good time, and have many adventures, but they never get
out of their crystal firmament. You may leave them for half a day, but
when you come back you know just where to find them. An aquarium is a
much safer place for goldfishes to swim in than the ocean; to be sure,
they do not get on far, but on the other hand they do not get lost,
and there are no whales or even herrings, to make them afraid. There
is the same advantage in doing our reasoning in a circle. We can keep
up an argument much longer when we are operating in friendly waters
and are always near our base of supplies. The trouble with thinking
straight is, that it is likely to take us too far from home. The first
we know we are facing a new issue. From this peril we are saved by the
habit of going round and round. He who argues and runs away from the
real difficulty lives to argue another day, and the best of it is the
argument will be just the same.
“_Argumentum ad Hominem._ This is a large family, containing many
interesting varieties. The _ad hominem_ is of parasitic growth, a sort
of logical mistletoe. It grows not out of the nature of things, but
of the nature of the particular mind to which it is addressed. In the
cultivation of this fallacy it is only necessary to remember that each
mind has its weak point. Find out what this weak point is, and drop
into it the seed of the appropriate fallacy, and the result will exceed
your fondest anticipation.
“Again with the reader’s kind permission, I will stray from the field
of botany; this time into that of personal experience. At the risk of
falling into obsolete and discredited methods of instruction, I will
ask you for the moment to look in and not out.
“Dear Reader, often, when reasoning with yourself, especially about
your own conduct, you have found comfort in a syllogism like this:--
I like to do right.
I do what I like.
Therefore, I do what is right.
The conclusion is so satisfactory that you have no heart to look too
narrowly at the process by which it is attained. When you do what you
like, it is pleasant to think that righteousness is a by-product of
your activity. Moreover, there is a native generosity about you which
makes you willing to share with others the more lasting benefits which
may ensue. You are ready to believe that what is profitable to you must
also be profitable to them in the long run,--if not in a material,
then in a spiritual way. All the advantage that comes to you is merely
temporary and personal. When you have reaped this scanty harvest, you
do not begrudge to humanity in general its plentiful gleanings. In
your altruistic mood you do not consider too carefully the particular
blessing which your action has bestowed on the world; you are content
with the thought that it is a good diffused.
“When out of what is in the beginning only a personal gratification
there grows a cosmic law, we have the _Argumentum ad Hominem_.
There are few greater pleasures in life than that of having all our
preferences justified by our reason. There are some persons who are
so susceptible to arguments of this kind that they never suffer from
the sensation of having done something wrong,--a sensation which I can
assure you is quite disagreeable. They might suspect they had done
wrong, were it not that as soon as they begin to reason about it they
perceive that all that happened was highly to their credit. The more
they think about it, the more pleased they are with themselves. They
perceive that their action was much more disinterested than, at the
time, they intended. They are like a person who tumbles into the Dead
Sea. He can’t go under even if he tries. It is, of course, a matter of
specific gravity. When a conscience is of less specific gravity than
the moral element into which it is cast, it cannot remain submerged.
The fortunate owner of such a conscience watches it with satisfaction
when it serenely bobs to the surface; he advertises its superlative
excellence,--‘Perfectly Pure! It floats.’