brings forth. And to treat with fairness and with balance the problems of successive periods of time demands the same sort of self-discipline which we have seen that effective coöperation with one's fellows in any one period requires. One must be conscious of the fact that a situation changes in significance as it is apperceived from different viewpoints, and must deliberately cultivate the ability to shift from one of these viewpoints to another. He must, of course, seek the necessary information - including a sense of the trend of history and, in addition, must strive for many-sidedness, for flexibility, for broad sympathy. But after all, while there have been men like Rousseau and the French Encyclopedists — who could not apperceive sympathetically the institutions of the past and the present, yet, for reasons which we have now sufficiently developed, it is a far more difficult problem to be fair to what should be the institutions of the future. One must then, to be sure, squarely face the value of what we already have and build upon it, but one must also, if he is to be in fact what he is in name, — “a rational animal," seek to appreciate and further progress. If more would act the play of Life, In Truth alone, The world would be the better for it. The chambered nautilus builds its shell in a spiral of successive chambers, always living in the last one. In an immortal poem, of which we quote the last three stanzas, Holmes sings its praise as the type of creature always ready to advance to a new and higher level: Year after year beheld the silent toil That spread its lustrous coil; Still, as the spiral grew, He left the past year's dwelling for the new, Stole with soft step its shining archway through, Built up its idle door, Stretched in its last-found home, and knew the old no more. Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, Child of the wandering sea, Cast from her lap, forlorn! From thy dead lips a clearer note is born Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn! While on mine ear it rings, Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings: — Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea. If the angel Gabriel So it is and must be always, my dear boys. were to come down from heaven, and head a successful rise against the most abominable and unrighteous vested interests, which this poor old world groans under, he would most certainly lose his character for many years, probably for centuries, not only with upholders of said vested interests, but with the respectable mass of the people whom he had delivered. They wouldn't ask him to dinner, or let their names appear with his in the papers; they would be very careful how they spoke of him in the palaver, or at their clubs. What can we expect, then, when we have only poor gallant blundering men like Kossuth, Garibaldi, Mazzini, and righteous causes which do not triumph in their hands; men who have holes enough in their armor, God knows, easy to be hit by respectabilities sitting in their lounging chairs, and having large balances at their bankers? But you are brave gallant boys, who hate easy chairs, and have no balances or bankers. You only want to have your heads set straight to take the right side; so bear in mind that majorities, especially respectable ones, are nine times out of ten in the wrong; and that if you see a man or a boy striving on the weak side, however wrong-headed or blundering he If you may be, you are not to go and join the cry against him. can't join and help him, and make him wiser, at any rate remember that he has found something in the world which he will fight and suffer for, which is just what you have got to do for yourselves; and so think and speak of him tenderly. HUGHES, in Tom Brown's School Days. EXERCISES 1. A show window, displaying curiosities, contained a pair of shoes of the 1897 model, having extremely long and narrow toes, and beside them a pair of the 1882 model, with toes just as abnormally broad. Both seemed appropriate in their own day, but both look ridiculous to-day. Why? 2. Are there fashions in thinking as well as in dressing? Why? 3. A prominent philosopher remarked that the fact that many persons hold a certain opinion is ground for distrusting it, and that the few men who differ from the masses are likely to be right. Is this true? Why? 4. Does society ordinarily move forward spontaneously or does it wait at each step for a prophet? How does society treat these prophets? 5. Are there unnamed prophets who deserve, but never even after death - get, credit? What happens to the "nearprophet" the one who advocates a cause that never wins? (See Mackenzie's "Manual of Ethics," page 355.) 6. Compare the social value of the radical progressive and the conservative. 7. Is Nietzsche's distinction between the good man and the hero a correct one? 8. Do you experience an uncomfortable feeling when a well-established convention is ruthlessly condemned in your presence? Why? 9. After a reform do conditions remain on the level to which they have been raised, do they continue to advance, or do they tend to degenerate into artificiality? Illustrate. 10. Can you name any reform movements of the present which are opposed chiefly because men are unwilling to adjust themselves to a new order? 11. Is the author correct in holding that we can be really loyal to our fathers only by sometimes setting aside their express. directions (as in the case of political policies or of religious creeds)? 12. Do you believe that you are able to do justice to "radical" proposals? CHAPTER VI HOW WE SOLVE OUR PROBLEMS USE OF HYPOTHESES CONSCIOUS Employment of hypotheses demanded for effective problem solving. A famous hunter tells us that when a boy he once succeeded in shooting a bear by "aiming at him generally." The success of this boyish incident was a cause for jest in his old age, because it contrasted so strongly with the method of his riper experience. As a mature hunter he would have hoped for no success from such "general" procedure. Yet many of us attack our problems in just that way. We stand and gaze at them in the lump, as if we hoped that the element that is first to be taken hold of would, after a while, call out Peep, here I am." The difference between success and failure in the solution of puzzling situations lies almost entirely in the method of attack. A machine is out of order. One sort of man will walk all around it, look it over in a dazed sort of way, shake each of its parts, and possibly by chance and after long searching, may find the seat of the trouble and correct it. A crime has been committed; he will walk around the scene of it, biting his lips and straining to think how to catch the guilty party and he has one chance in a thousand of succeeding. Or a lesson is to be studied, a paper to be written, or a mathematical problem to be solved; our friend will plunge planlessly into it, hoping to earn his success by the sweat of his brow and luck may possibly reward his efforts. But another sort of man will go at the matter in a very different manner. He will examine the machine in but few places, yet, for some mysterious reason, the trouble is found lurking in one of these few even more surely than in the many which our friend above investigated. He will look hastily over the scene of a crime and go back to his office, but strangely, within a few hours, he will be able to tell just what has happened and lay his hands upon the culprit.. Or he will sit down to his lesson, his paper, or his problem and they will fall apart for him as if by magic. He seems to have peculiar luck, every time he thrusts in his thumb, to pull out a plum. Why is this? It is merely because our second friend does not approach his puzzling situation empty minded but with certain hypotheses, that is guesses, in mind about it. How this works a number of illustrations will make clear. you Practical. You go Illustration of use of hypotheses. into the back yard and find the limb of a valuable tree broken down. Interested in finding out the cause for the damage, you will at once proceed to set up and try out a number of suppositions that is, guesses or hypotheses. First you will probably assume that a storm has broken it down. In testing this hypothesis it will occur to you that there should be other indications of the visitation of a storm fences broken down, débris scattered about, etc. and for these will look. You will also consider the presence or absence of direct confirmation of a storm - the probability of your having heard it, reports from the neighbors, etc. If all these conditions of a storm are present, and fit together, you will probably be satisfied with that as an explanation, but if not you will make another supposition and try it out. You will suppose, let us say, that it has broken down of its own weight, or that some animal has pulled it down, or that a mischievous boy has done it. Each of these suppositions, if true, would necessitate certain attendant conditions which, in running them down in turn, you will find either present or absent. If present they strengthen the |