of things. The adaptation of means to ends in play, in ministering to
bodily wants, occupies the mind in very early stages of thinking. The
gifts of the kindergarten appeal to this tendency in the mind, and help
to develop it into habit and faculty. Design and its execution, means and
end, the tool and its use, the raw material and the purpose for which
it is to be used, thought-material and the essay in which it is to be
formulated,—these are so many ways of thinking things or ideas in their
relations. Not only may a relation become a distinct object of thought,
but relations between relations, classes of relations,—for instance, in
simple and compound proportion,—can thus be made to stand apart before
the mind as distinct objects of thought. The most important of all these
relations is that of cause and effect. How things come to be, their
origin and development, the forces that make them what they are, are
the questions of profound and abiding interest to the scientific mind.
Laws are often spoken of as if they were causes. A law is a generalized
statement of an invariable sequence of things or motions of things. We
sometimes personify these sequences, and speak of them as if they were
forces in nature. The laws are personified, as if they were conscious
beings demanding obedience, and inflicting punishment for disobedience.
The consciousness of the personification is lost, and then along with
spelling nature with a capital letter, we fall into the mistake of
making laws stand for the Maker and Creator of all things. Furthermore,
it is very important to distinguish the ground of knowledge from causes
that are operative in the world outside of mind. The rain of last night
caused the streets to be muddy; but the condition of the streets, an
effect of rainfall, may be the ground of our knowledge that it must have
rained last night. The fact that the earth is flattened at the poles,
or, in other words, that its curvature is less at the poles than at the
equator, explains the fact that degrees of latitude get longer as we
approach the poles. The former is the cause, the latter is an effect.
But the mind drew the former as an inference from the determination
of degrees of latitude by actual measurement. The effect became the
ground of knowledge. Frequently the cause is known or inferred from its
effect. That which is causal in the world of mind is effect in the world
outside of mind; and that which is effect in nature becomes the ground of
knowledge in the processes of thought. From this point as vantage-ground,
we spy the land in which thinking becomes knowing.
XVII
THINKING AND KNOWING
When a man’s knowledge is not in order, the more of it he has
the greater will be his confusion of thought. When the facts
are not organized into faculty, the greater the mass of them
the more will the mind stagger along under its burden, hampered
instead of helped by its acquisitions.
H. SPENCER.
That knowledge cannot be gained without more or less of correct
and prolonged thinking is a practical maxim which no one would
be found to dispute. But that there is much knowledge which
does not come by _mere_ thinking is a maxim scarcely more to
be held in doubt. Thinking is, then, universally recognized
as an important and even necessary part of knowing; but it is
not the whole of knowing. Or, in other words, one must make
use of one’s faculties of thought as an indispensable means
to cognition; but there are other means which must also be
employed, since it is not by thought alone that the human mind
attains cognition.
LADD’S “PHILOSOPHY OF KNOWLEDGE,” page 130.
XVII
THINKING AND KNOWING
One morning a teacher was awakened by a noise, the like of which he had
never heard and hopes never to hear again. It was unlike anything in his
former experience. Soon he began to distinguish the hissing of steam and
the moaning of men, but the cause was still a mystery. Later, he learned
that the blast furnace in the neighborhood had exploded, and that several
men were killed and others had been seriously injured by the explosion.
[Sidenote: Interpretation of sense-impressions.]
The cause of the noise could not be inferred, because there was nothing
in his former experience with which it could be compared. The escaping
steam and the voices of the suffering workmen were recognized because
they could be interpreted in the light of what he had seen and heard
before. In order that any one may derive definite knowledge from
sense-impressions, there must be something in past experience to give
meaning to the new experience.
Observation that issues in knowing is coupled with a process of thought
in which the new perception is linked to the ideas which the mind brings
to the perception. In other words, observation always involves the
element of thinking; without thinking, sense-impressions cannot give us
knowledge.
Knowing is impossible without thinking, and yet not all thinking gives
ripe to knowing. What is the relation between the two?
[Sidenote: What is knowledge?]
Knowledge has been defined as firm belief in what is true on sufficient
ground. The explanation of this definition which Locke gives is well
known to every student of philosophy. “If any one is in _doubt_
respecting one of Euclid’s demonstrations, he cannot be said to _know_
the proposition proved by it; if again he is fully _convinced_ of
anything that is not true, he is mistaken in supposing himself to know
it; lastly, if two persons are each _fully confident_, one that the moon
is inhabited, and the other that it is not (though one of these opinions
must be true), neither of them could properly be said to _know_ the
truth, since he cannot have sufficient _proof_ of it.”[46]
[Sidenote: Belief.]
The foregoing definition consists of three parts,—1, firm belief; 2,
in what is true; 3, on sufficient ground. In common parlance, belief
is distinguished from knowledge, the latter implying a higher degree
of assurance than the former. In some treatises on psychology belief
denotes all forms of assent, including the highest possible certainty and
conviction. The expression _firm belief_ excludes the element of doubt
from knowledge.
[Sidenote: Truth.]
Truth, according to the etymology of the word, signifies that which the
mind trows or believes to be fact or reality. It has its source in God,
whilst knowledge proceeds from man. To be true, a proposition must be
in exact accordance with what is or has been or shall be. Truth exists
apart from the cognitions of the human mind. It would continue to exist
if the mind of man were blotted out of existence, and there was truth
long before the intelligence of man was called into being. The aim of
thinking is to find out and lay hold of the truth. Thinking in which
truth and error are mixed may have value as partial knowledge and as a
stepping-stone to fuller knowledge. Knowledge becomes full and complete
only in so far as it contains the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth.
[Sidenote: The ground of knowledge.]
Full knowledge implies a basis upon which it may rest. There may be
sufficient ground for the firm belief which constitutes the essence of
knowledge even when the truth cognized is incapable of full and complete
demonstration.
[Sidenote: The reason why.]
It is natural for a child to believe. The statements of others are
accepted as true without question, so long as the child has not been
deceived by others. Hence many teachers have assumed that their chief
function is to ask the reason _why_, so that belief in what is true may
be based upon sufficient ground, and that nothing shall be accepted as
true until it is proved. This was one of the erroneous views under which
Pestalozzi labored. He justified the undue attention paid to mathematics
in his school on the ground that he wished his pupils to believe nothing
which cannot be demonstrated as clearly as two and two make four.
Whereupon Père Girard replied, “In that case, if I had thirty sons I
would not intrust one of them to you; for it would be impossible for you
to demonstrate to him, as you can that two and two make four, that I am
his father and that I have a right to his obedience.”[47]
[Sidenote: Exhaustive study.]
[Sidenote: The question how.]
The progress of a pupil may be hindered by too much emphasis upon the
ground of knowledge. The human mind cannot make an exhaustive study of
very many things. Exhaustion is a term applied by logicians to a method
of proof in which “all the arguments tending to an opposite conclusion
are brought forward, discussed, and proved untenable or absurd, thus
leaving the original proposition established by the exclusion of every
alternate.” Speaking positively, we may say that exhaustive study of
a subject explores it in all its bearings and relations as well as
in its nature and essence. In every subject the known is bounded by
the unknown; new methods of preparation and investigation constantly
reveal novelties in whole classes of objects which it was supposed had
been studied exhaustively. The specialist seeks to know all that has
been brought to light in his field of research, and to push out the
limits of knowledge beyond the goal reached by his predecessors. The
thoroughness of the specialist is not required in elementary instruction.
The writer knows of a teacher who for an entire term kept a class of
boys at work upon highest common factor and least common multiple on the
plea that they did not thoroughly understand these subjects. No better
plan of disgusting boys with arithmetic and algebra could have been
devised. Thorough knowledge of these two subjects involves reasoning and
demonstrations more difficult to grasp than half the theorems in Euclid.
Instead of aiming at exhaustive treatment, the true teacher is satisfied
with knowledge adequate for the subsequent work of the course. If the
pupil has reached the stage where he can appreciate the reason why, it
may be (though it is not always) wise to raise this question, and to
insist on a comprehension of the proof. Very often the mind has enough
to do in trying to see _how_; the question _why_ then interferes with
the mastery of the mechanical operations. Let any adult take up a system
of arithmetic with which he is unfamiliar, say the arithmetic based on
counting by fives, or by twelves, or by thirties (each of the last two,
mathematically speaking, better than the arithmetic based on tens), he
will soon find it is work enough at first for his intellect to perform
the operations of adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing without
reference to the philosophic explanations which exhaustive study would
require at every step in the operations.
[Sidenote: When knowledge is clear, when distinct.]
Descartes applied several of the technical terms of optics to the science
of mind, and in this he has been followed by Locke, Leibnitz, and others.
An object seen at a great distance or in insufficient light looks
obscure; as the eye approaches, or as the dawn increases, the object, as
a whole, becomes clear enough to be distinguished from other objects,
although its constituent parts are still confused. Increasing light or a
nearer approach finally enables us to discern the parts, and the vision
of the object grows distinct. Clear vision occurs where the object, as a
whole, can be recognized; distinct vision occurs when the parts of the
object seen can be recognized. In like manner ideas are said to be clear
as distinguished from obscure, when they are discerned in outline; they
are distinct (opposed to indistinct or confused) when they are discerned
in their elements or constituent parts. Distinct mental vision requires
analytic and synthetic thinking.
Of many objects the mind needs only clear knowledge for ordinary
purposes. One may distinguish two brothers by the total impression of
each which he carries in his mind, and yet be totally unable to tell any
specific marks by which he knows the one from the other. The painter,
on the other hand, cannot be satisfied with this total impression; he
studies the individual features until he has a distinct impression of
their likenesses and differences.
Of the map of one’s own country it pays to know the States and
Territorial divisions. Of one’s State, a knowledge of the counties,
and of one’s county, a knowledge of the townships may be helpful.
For specific vocations more minute knowledge may be desirable. Each
individual mind can well afford to stop with a measure of geographical
knowledge that is adequate for the duties of his vocation and the
purposes of his reading of books and newspapers.
Very little of our knowledge of geography is based upon experience; most
of it rests upon testimony. The eye at a glance may take in the outlines
of an island of the Susquehanna river. The fact that Great Britain is an
island rests upon the testimony of maps; our belief is based upon what we
have always heard and read, and is further strengthened by the absence of
testimony to the contrary. If the fact had ever been questioned, the mind
might hold its judgment in suspense until sufficient ground was found to
warrant a conclusion.
[Sidenote: Value of questions.]
When the knowledge which a pupil has is to be deepened or made more
distinct a series of well-chosen questions may beget the required
thinking. For instance, let us take the case of a pupil who has
reached the stage where his knowledge of the properties of the parts
of speech should be made more complete. Let the teacher ask for the
difference between a pencil and a part of speech, between a noun and a
name, between gender and sex, between number in grammar and number in
arithmetic, between person in grammar and a person like the President
of the United States, between case in grammar and a case in division
of fractions, between tense and time, between mode and manner, between
action and a verb, between the object of an action and the object of a
verb. Comparison will soon show the inaccuracy of the statement that the
direct object of an action is in the accusative case; and the learner
will see that case is a property of nouns, not of objects, and cannot be
predicated of the object of an action, but of the _word_ which _denotes_
the object of the action, which word may be either in the nominative
or the accusative case as the verb is either in the passive or active
voice. Comparison will lead the pupil to see clearly that gender is
a property of nouns, whereas sex or the absence of sex is predicated
of that for which nouns stand. Comparison will serve to bring out the
distinction between number in grammar as a property of nouns indicating
one or more than one, and numbers in arithmetic, of which there are as
many as there are units or collections of units in the universe. Thinking
by comparison will lead to the detection of similarities and differences,
to discrimination, combination, and generalization, and through these to
more distinct and more adequate knowledge.
Questions which draw attention to likenesses and differences, to causal
relations and logical sequences, stimulate analysis and comparison; the
resulting judgments clarify the stream of thought and push the boundary
of knowledge into the regions of the hitherto unknown.
[Sidenote: Theory, true and false.]
The greatest minds when working under the influence of a false theory
fail to arrive at truth. Socrates rejected the view of Anaxagoras that
the sun is a fire, because we can look at a fire, but not at the sun,
because plants grow by sunshine and are killed by fire, and because a
stone heated in fire is not luminous, but soon cools, whereas the sun
always remains equally hot and luminous. Newton did more than all other
thinkers combined to make astronomy a science; his discoveries in physics
and mathematics rank him among the greatest investigators the world has
thus far known; yet he spent many nights trying to find the method by
which the baser metals could be transmuted into silver and gold; his
researches as an alchemist led to nothing, because he was working under
the spell of a false theory.[48]
[Sidenote: Scientists.]
Faraday acknowledged that he was often compelled to give up his
preconceived notions, and in some cases his failures are almost as
instructive as his discoveries. It was characteristic of him to hold
to his theories until he proved them either true or false, and he was
ever ready to reject any hypothesis as soon as he found it inconsistent
with the laws of nature. Newton was willing to suspend judgment for
years upon his theory of gravitation, until more accurate measurements
of the earth’s size and the moon’s distance showed his theory and
calculations to be right. Socrates advised his followers to quit the
study of astronomy, probably because he felt that in his time the data
were not sufficient to warrant definite conclusions. Hosts of instances
can be cited showing that the thinking of the strongest intellects does
not issue in knowing when it is based upon or biassed by a wrong working
hypothesis. And yet it must be confessed that wrong hypotheses may lead
to valuable negative results, as in the case of Kepler’s investigations,
each exploded theory making room for the construction of a theory more
in accordance with the facts. The superiority of men of genius lies in
their love of truth and fidelity to fact; in the facility with which
they construct theories to account for observed phenomena; in the
patience with which they test theory by fact, and in the readiness with
which they reject every hypothesis as soon as it is found to be in
irreconcilable conflict with well-established facts. The average life of
a theory in science is said to be only ten years. The average would be
lower still if all rejected theories had been put into books. The men
possessed of a truly scientific spirit differ from ordinary men not only
in the painstaking accuracy of their observations and in the surprising
fertility with which they frame theories, but also in the habit of
verifying every hypothesis until there is sufficient ground to establish
its truth and to receive it as an addition to the sum total of human
knowledge.
[Sidenote: The common people.]
The common people are quite as ready to frame theories as the scientists
and philosophers. It would be well if they were equally patient in
testing their theories and in verifying their suppositions. The human
mind cannot help generalizing. The moment a child uses a common noun it
begins to classify. Its tendency to pull things to pieces and to put them
together again are exhibitions of the mind’s tendency to treat everything
by analysis and synthesis. Purpose and design, cause and effect early
show themselves in the thinking of children. The teacher need but guide
these activities and give the mind the proper material to work upon; the
result cannot be doubtful if the mind which plays upon the learner’s mind
has been trained to operate according to the laws of thought and the
principles which must guide in the discovery of the truth.
[Sidenote: Doubt.]
Doubt is sometimes the prerequisite of knowledge. To raise a doubt in
the mind of a growing youth may cause him to think. It may cause him to
explore the grounds of his knowledge, to ascertain the rational basis
upon which his beliefs rest, and to reject such as were of the nature
of prejudice or of tradition with no sufficient warrant for acceptance.
Rational belief is far superior to blind faith.
When the doubt is raised in regard to the verities of one’s religious
faith there is grave danger of landing in scepticism or infidelity. What
is truth? may be asked in the spirit of Pilate, who turned away from the
Great Teacher with a despairing sneer and without waiting for a reply.
Pilate had trifled with his own conscience until he could no longer
discern truth and righteousness. Some men need better hearts in order
that they may think and know the highest truth. The hope can be held out
that whenever the truth is earnestly sought by the human heart the soul
will ultimately be guided into a knowledge of the truth. To disturb the
grounds upon which rest the principles of morality and religion is a
dangerous experiment, especially in the case of immature minds. The flood
of doubt may sweep away the solid foundations of a pupil’s moral nature
and leave him a wreck upon the quicksands of vice or upon the rock of
scepticism.
It is the nature of the child to believe, to cherish faith in what others
tell him and in what the world presents to his vision. To disturb the
fervor and strength of this trust before the understanding is ripe for
fuller knowledge may result in life-long injury. The child’s faith in
fairyland, in Santa-Claus, should, of course, be kept from becoming a
source of terror. The stories of ghosts, spooks, and hobgoblins sometimes
employed in the nursery to influence conduct may cause fears, terrors,
and horrors from which it is well to emancipate the child as speedily as
possible through the light of clearer knowledge.
[Sidenote: The desire to know.]
Better than doubt as a stimulus to thought is the desire to know. St.
Augustine was on _fire to know_. The teacher who kindles and keeps
burning this fire in the soul of the pupil has supplied the most powerful
incentive to thought; for without thinking knowledge is impossible of
attainment.
[Sidenote: Full cognition.]
As we may start our wood flaming by coals hot from another’s fire, so we
may kindle a burning desire for knowledge by bringing the mind in contact
with minds that are all aglow with the desire to know. A burning fire may
soon exhaust its fuel if left to itself. The teacher supplies the fuel,
fans the flame, directs its activity for well-defined purposes. Here the
analogy breaks. Instead of smoke and ashes we want living products as
the result of knowing. As thinking leads to knowing, so knowing should
give rise to further thinking. Nowhere is the teacher’s function of
guiding more indispensably necessary than in the interplay of these two
activities. While the learner is engrossed in the pursuit of knowledge,
the teacher is watching the process and the results. He is not satisfied
unless the activity of thinking and knowing ends in full cognition. It
has been well said that a dog knows his master, but does not cognize
him; that to cognize means to refer a perception to an object by means
of a conception. The objects of thought must be sorted and arranged in
groups; the particular notion must take its place in the general concept;
the materials upon which the mind acts must be assimilated and organized
into a unity, showing how each has its origin and how it stands in living
relation to every other part of the organic whole; otherwise thinking
cannot lead to complete cognition.
[Sidenote: The limit of instruction.]
The incident at the beginning of this chapter shows that some preparation
is necessary to interpret sense-impressions and organize the materials
of thought for the purpose of cognition. The degree of preparation
determines how far the instruction at a given time shall aim to go. To
get a clearer idea of the thing to be known may exhaust the learner’s
strength. If so, the presentation should stop at that point. But as soon
as his power and interest are equal to the task he should be led to
analyze the object of thought so as to cognize the constituent elements,
the essential attributes, a process whereby he will arrive at distinct
knowledge. It may be advisable before dropping the inquiry to institute
comparisons between objects of the same class, for the purpose of calling
attention to differences and likenesses and evolving general concepts or
universal propositions. For many thinkers these are the goal of thinking.
If they can resolve the universe to a few simple generalizations,
their minds are satisfied. Nothing more barren can well be imagined or
conceived.
[Sidenote: Application of knowledge.]
Cognition is not complete until the knowledge has been or can be applied.
At times there may be a division of labor and glory in the discovery and
application of truth. The discoveries of Professor Henry which made the
electric telegraph possible involved thinking quite as valuable as the
invention of Professor Morse. The achievement of Cyrus W. Field in laying
the Atlantic cable involved thinking quite as important as the researches
and experiments of Lord Kelvin which made the cable successful.
Interesting examples of such division of labor in thinking cannot justify
neglect of the applications after a general truth has been evolved and
stated.