Common-sense knowledge is largely a matter of uncritical belief. When there is absent scientific examination of the sources and grounds of belief, those judgments and conclusions are likely to be accepted which happen to have wide social currency and authority. In an earlier chapter, it was shown how the mere fact of an opinion prevailing among a large number of one's group or class gives it great emotional weight. Where opinions are not determined by intelligent examination and decision, they are determined by force of habit, early education, and the social influences to which one is constantly exposed.

The scientific spirit is a spirit of emancipated inquiry as contrasted with blind acceptance of belief upon authority. The phenomenal developments of modern science began when men ceased to accept authoritatively their beliefs about man and nature, and undertook to examine phenomena in their own terms. The phenomenal rise of modern science is coincident with the collapse of unquestioning faith as the leading ingredient of intellectual life.

Common sense renders men peculiarly insensitive to the possibilities of the novel, peculiarly susceptible to the influence of tradition. It was common sense that credited the influence of the position of the stars upon men's welfare, the power of old women as witches, and the unhealthiness of night air. It was common sense also that ridiculed Fulton's steamboat, laughed at the early attempts of telegraphy and telephony, and dismissed the aeroplane as an interesting toy. The characteristic feature of common sense or empirical thinking is its excess traditionalism, its wholesale acceptance of authority,[1] its reliance upon precedent. Where beliefs are not subjected to critical revision and examination, to the constant surveillance of the inquiring intelligence, there will be no criterion by which to estimate the true and the false, the important and the trivial. All beliefs that have wide social sanction, or that chime in with immediate sense impressions, established individual habits, or social customs will be accepted with the same indiscriminate hospitality. To common sense the sun does appear to go round the earth; the stick does appear broken in water. Thus "totally false opinions may appear to the holder of them to possess all the character of rationally verifiable truth."

[Footnote 1: "Authority" in this sense of social prestige must be distinguished from "authority" in the sense of scientific authority. The acceptance of the authority of the expert is the acceptance of opinions that we have good reason to believe are the result of scientific inquiry.]

The dangers and falsities of common-sense judgments are conditioned not only by expectations and standards fixed by the social environment, but by one's own personal predilections and aversions. Recent developments in psychology have made much of the fact that many of our so-called reasoned judgments are rationalizations, secondary reasons found after our initial, primary, and deep-seated emotional responses have been made. They are the result of emotional "complexes," fears, expectations, and desires of which we are not ourselves conscious.[1] It is from these limiting conditions of personal preference and social environment that scientific method frees us.

[Footnote 1: "When a party politician is called upon to consider a new measure, his verdict is largely determined by certain constant systems of ideas and trends of thought, constituting what is generally known as 'party bias.' We should describe these systems in our newly acquired terminology as his 'political complex.' The complex causes him to take up an attitude toward the proposed measure which is quite independent of any absolute merits that the latter may possess. If we argue with our politician, we shall find that the complex will reinforce in his mind those arguments which support the view of his party, while it will infallibly prevent him from realizing the force of the arguments propounded by the opposite side. Now, it should be observed that the individual himself is probably quite unaware of this mechanism in his mind. He fondly imagines that his opinion is formed solely by the logical pros and cons of the measure before him. We see, in fact, that not only is his thinking determined by a complex of whose action he is unconscious, but that he believes his thoughts to be the result of other causes which are in reality insufficient and illusory. This latter process of self-deception, in which the individual conceals the real foundation of his thought by a series of adventitious props, is termed 'rationalization.'

"The two mechanisms which manifest themselves in our example of the politician, the unconscious origin of beliefs and actions, and the subsequent process of rationalization to which they are subjected, are of fundamental importance in psychology." (Bernard Hart: The Psychology of Insanity, pp. 64-66.)]

Again, even where common-sense judgments are not particularly qualified by such conditions, they are frequently based upon the observation of purely accidental conjunctions of circumstances. A sequence once or twice observed is taken as the basis of a causal relation. This gives rise to what is known in technical logic as the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy; that is, the assumption that because one thing happens after another, therefore it happens because of it. Many superstitions probably had their origin in such chance observations, and belief in them is strengthened by some accidental confirmation. Thus if a man walks under a ladder one day and dies the next, the believer in the superstition that walking under a ladder brings fatal results will find in this instance a clear ratification of his belief. There seems to be an inveterate human tendency to seek for causes, and by those who are not scientific inquirers causes are lightly assigned. It is easiest and most plausible to assign as a cause an immediately preceding circumstance. Exceptional or contradictory circumstances are then either unnoticed or pared down to fit the belief.

Scientific method does not depend on such chance conjunctions of circumstance, but controls its observations or experimentally arranges conditions so as to discover what are the conditions necessary to produce given effects, or what effects invariably follow from given causes. It does not accept a chance conjunction as evidence of an invariable relation, but seeks, under regulated conditions, to discover what the genuinely invariable relations are. This method of controlling our generalizations about the facts of experience, we shall presently examine in some detail.

CURIOSITY AND SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY. Curiosity, the instinctive basis of the desire to know, is the basis of scientific inquiry. Without this fundamental desire, there could be no sustaining motive to deep and thoroughgoing scientific research, for theoretical investigations do not always give promise of immediate practical benefits. The scientific interest is a development of that restless curiosity for a knowledge of the world in which they are living which children so markedly exhibit. Beginning as a kind of miscellaneous and omnivorous appetite for facts of whatever description, it grows into a desire to understand the unsuspected and hidden relations between facts, to penetrate to the unities discoverable beneath the mysteries and multiplicities of things.

The scientific mood is thus in the first place a sheer instinctive curiosity, a basic passion for facts. It is this which sustains the scientific worker in the sometimes long and dreary business of collecting specimens, instances, details. Many of the most notable scientific advances, as Lord Kelvin pointed out, must be attributed to the most protracted and unmitigated drudgery in the collection of facts, a thoroughgoing and trying labor in which the scientific worker could persist only when fortified by an eager and insistent curiosity. This "hodman's work" is the basis of the great generalizations which constitute the framework of the modern scientific systems. "The monotonous and quantitative work of star-cataloguing has been continued from Hipparchus, who began his work more than a century before Christ, work which is continued even to the present day. This work, uninspiring as it seems, is yet an essential basis for the applications of astronomy, the determination of time, navigation, surveying. Furthermore, without good star places, we can have no theory of the motions of the solar system, and without accurate catalogues of the stars we can know nothing of the grander problems of the universe, the motion of our sun among the stars, or of the stars among themselves."[1]

[Footnote 1: Hinks: Astronomy, p. 162.]

Not only is curiosity a sustaining motive in the drudgery of collection and research incident and essential to scientific generalization; it alone makes possible that suspense of judgment which is necessary to fruitful scientific inquiry. This suspense is, as we have already seen, difficult for most men. Action demands immediate decision, and inquiry deliberately postpones decision. It is only a persistent desire to "get at the bottom of the matter" that will act as a check upon the demands of social life and of individual impatience which rush us to conclusions. In most men, as earlier noted, the sharp edge of curiosity becomes easily blunted. They are content, outside their own immediate personal interests, "to take things for granted." They glide over the surfaces of events, they cease to query the authenticity of facts, or to examine their relevance and their significance, or to be concerned about their completeness. For an example, one has but to listen to or partake in the average discussion of any political or social issue of the present day. There are few men who retain, even as far as middle life, a genuinely inquiring interest in men and affairs. Their curiosity is dulled by fatigue and the pressure of their own interests and preoccupations, and they allow their prejudices and formulas to pass for judgments and conclusions. The scientist is the man in whom curiosity has become a permanent passion, who, as long as he lives, is unwilling to forego inquiry into the processes of Nature, or of human relations.

THINKING BEGINS WITH A PROBLEM. While the general habit of inquiry is developed in the satisfaction of the instinct of curiosity, any particular investigation begins with a felt difficulty. By difficulty is not meant one of an imperative and practical kind, but any problem whether theoretical or practical. For many men, it is true, thinking occurs only when instinct and habit are inadequate to adjust them to their environment. Any problem of daily life affords an example. To borrow an illustration from Professor Dewey:

A man traveling in an unfamiliar region comes to a branching of the roads. Having no sure knowledge to fall back upon, he is brought to a standstill of hesitation and suspense. Which road is right? And how shall the perplexity be resolved? There are but two alternatives. He must either blindly and arbitrarily take his course, trusting to luck for the outcome, or he must discover grounds for the conclusion that a given road is right.[1]

[Footnote l: Dewey: How We Think, p. 10.]

To the inquiring mind, purely theoretical difficulties or discrepancies will provoke thought. To the astronomer an unaccounted-for perturbation in the path of a planet provokes inquiry; the chemist is challenged by a curious unexplained reaction of two chemical elements, the biologist, anterior to the discovery of micro-organisms, by the putrefaction of animal tissues. The degree to which curiosity persists and the extent of training a man has had in a given field largely determine the kind of situations that will provoke inquiry. "A primrose by the river's brim" may be simply a primrose to one man, while to another, a botanist, it may suggest an interesting and complex problem of classification.

But however remote and recondite thinking becomes, however far removed from immediate practical concerns, it occurs essentially in a situation analogous to the "forked-road situation" described above. The situation as it stands is confused, ambiguous, uncertain. In a practical problem, for example, there are two or more courses of action open to us, all of them giving promise as solutions of our difficulties. We aim through reflection to reduce the uncertainty, to clarify the situation, to discover more clearly the consequences of the various alternatives which suggest themselves to us. When action is unimpeded, suggestions flow on just as they arise in our minds. This is illustrated best in the reveries of a day-dream when casual and disconnected fancies follow each other in random and uncontrolled succession. But when there is a problem to be settled, an ambiguity to be resolved, suggestions are held in check and controlled with reference to the end we have in view; each suggestion is estimated with regard to its relevance to the problem in hand. Every idea that arises is, so to speak, queried: "Is it or is it not a solution to our present difficulty?"

We are indebted to Professor Dewey, for an analysis of the thought process. Every instance of thinking reveals five steps:

(1) A felt difficulty, (2) its location and definition, (3) suggestions of possible solutions, (4) development by reasoning of the bearings of the most promising suggestion, (5) further observation or experiment leading to its acceptance or rejection, that is a conclusion either of belief or disbelief.

When instinct or habit suffices to adjust us to our environment, action runs along smoothly, freely, uninterruptedly. In consequence the provocation to thinking may at first be a mere vague shock or disturbance. We are, as it were, in trouble without knowing precisely what the trouble is. We must carefully inquire into the nature of the problem before undertaking a solution. To take a simple instance, an automobile may suddenly stop. We know there is a difficulty, but whether it is a difficulty with the transmission, with the carburetor, or with the supply of gasoline, we cannot at first tell. Before we do anything else in solving our problem, we find out literally and precisely what the trouble is. To take a different situation, a doctor does not undertake to prescribe for a patient until he has diagnosed the difficulty, found out precisely what the features of the problem are.

The second step after the situation has been examined and its precise elements defined, is suggestion. That is, we consider the various possibilities which suggest themselves as solutions to our problem. There may be several ways of temporarily repairing our engine; the doctor may think of two or three possible treatments for a disease. In one sense, suggestion is uncontrollable. The kind of suggestions that occur to an individual depend on his "genius or temperament," on his past experiences, on his hopes or fears or expectations when that particular situation occurs. We can, however, through the methods of science, control suggestions indirectly. We can do this, in the first place, by reexamining the facts which give rise to suggestion. If upon close examination, the facts appear differently from what they did at first, we will derive different inferences from them. Different suggestions will arise from the facts A, B, C, than from the facts A', B', C'. Again we can regulate the conditions under which credence is given to the various suggestions that arise. These suggestions are entertained merely as tentative, and are not accepted until experimentally verified. "The suggested conclusion as only tentatively entertained constitutes an idea."

After the variety of suggestions that proffer themselves as solutions to a problem have been considered, the third step is the logical development of the idea or suggestion that gives most promise of solving the difficulty. That is, even before further facts are sought, the idea that gives promise of being a solution is followed out to its logical consequences. Thus, for example, astronomers were for a long time puzzled by unexplained perturbations in the path of the planet Uranus. The suggestion occurred that an unseen planet was deflecting it from the path it should, from observation and calculation, be following. If this were the case, from the amount of deflection it was mathematically calculated, prior to any further observation, that the supposed planet should appear at a certain point in space. It was by this deductive elaboration that the planet Neptune was discovered. It was figured out deductively that a planet deflecting the path of the planet Uranus by just so-and-so much should be found at just such and such a particular point in the heavens. When the telescopes were turned in that direction, the planet Neptune was discovered at precisely the point deductively forecast.

The elaboration of an idea through reasoning it out may sometimes lead to its rejection. But in thinking out its details we may for the first time note its appositeness to the solution of the problem in hand. The gross suggestion may seem wild and absurd, but when its bearings and consequences are logically developed there may be some item in the development which dovetails into the problem as its solution. William James gives as the outstanding feature of reasoning, "sagacity, or the perception of the essence."[1] By this he meant the ability to single out of a complex situation or idea the significant or key feature. It is only by a logical development of a suggested solution to a problem that it is possible to hit upon the essence of the matter for a particular situation, to single out of a gross total situation, the key to the phenomenon. "In reasoning, A may suggest B; but B, instead of being an idea which is simply obeyed by us, is an idea which suggests the distinct additional idea C. And where the train of suggestion is one of reasoning distinctively so-called as contrasted with mere 'revery,' ... the ideas bear certain inward relations to each other which we must carefully examine. The result C yielded by a true act of reasoning is apt to be a thing voluntarily sought, such as the means to a proposed end, the ground for an observed effect, or the effect of an assumed cause."[2] Thus what at first sight might seem a fantastic suggestion may, when its bearings are logically followed out, be seen in one of its aspects to be the key to the solution of a problem. To primitive man it might have seemed absurd to suggest that flowing water might be used as power; to the man in Franklin's day that the same force that was exhibited in the lightning might be used in transportation and in lighting houses.[1]

[Footnote 1: James: Psychology, vol. II, p. 343.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid., p. 329.]

[Footnote 1: James gives an illuminating passage on the importance of the effectiveness of reasoning things out: "I have a student's lamp, of which the flame vibrates most unpleasantly unless the collar which bears the chimney be raised about a sixteenth of an inch. I learned the remedy after much torment by accident, and now always keep the collar up with a small wedge. But my procedure is a mere association of two totals, diseased object and remedy. One learned in pneumatics could have named the cause of the disease, and thence inferred the remedy immediately. By many measurements of triangles, one might find their area always equal to their height multiplied by half their base, and one might formulate an empirical law to that effect. But a reasoner saves himself all this trouble, by seeing that it is the essence (pro hac vice) of a triangle to be the half of a parallelogram whose area is the height into the entire base. To see this he must invent additional lines; and the geometer must often draw such to get at the essential properties he may require in a figure. The essence consists in some relation of the figure to the new lines, a relation not obvious at all until they are put in. The geometer's sagacity lies in the invention of the new lines." (Psychology, vol. II, pp. 339-40.)]

But no thinking is conclusive until after the experimental certification and warranting of the idea which has been held in mind as the solution of the problem. By deduction, by logical elaboration of an idea, we find its adoption involves certain consequences. Some of the logical consequences which follow from an idea may indicate that it is a plausible solution of our problem. But no matter how plausible a suggestion looks, until it is verified by observation or experiment the thinking process is not concluded, is not finished, as we say, conclusively. When an idea or a suggestion has been developed, and seen to involve—as an idea—certain inevitable logical consequences, the idea must be tested by further observation and experiment. Suggestions arise from facts and must be tested by them. Until the suggestion is verified, it remains merely a suggestion, a theory, a hypothesis, an idea. It is only when the consequences implied logically in the very idea itself are found in the actual situation that the idea is accepted as a solution to the problem. Sometimes the suggestion may be verified by observation; sometimes conditions must be deliberately arranged for testing its adequacy. In either case it is only when the facts of the situation correspond to the conditions theoretically involved that the tentative idea is accepted as a conclusion.

Thus a treatment that is regarded by the doctor as a possible cure can be called an actual cure only when its beneficent results are observed. The supposition about the planet Neptune is only verified when the planet is actually observed in the heavens. Thinking ends, as it begins, in observation. At the beginning the facts are carefully examined to see precisely where the difficulty lies; at the end they are again examined to see whether an idea, an entertained hypothesis, a suggested solution, can be verified in actual observable results.

THE QUALITY OF THINKING—SUGGESTION. The quality of thinking varies, first, with the fertility of suggestion of the analyzing mind. Ease of suggestion, in the first place, depends on innate individual differences. There are some minds so constituted that every fact provokes a multitude of suggestions. Readiness in responding with "ideas" to any experience is dependent primarily on initial differences in resilience and responsiveness. But differences in training and past experience are also contributory. A man who has much experience in a given field, say in automobile repairing, will, given a difficulty, not only think of more suggestions, but think more rapidly in that field.

Again persons differ in range or number of suggestions that occur. The quality of the thinking process and of the results it produces depends, in part, on the variety of suggestions which occur to an individual in the solution of a given problem. If too few suggestions occur one may fail to hit upon any promising solution. If too many suggestions occur one may be too confused to arrive at any conclusion at all. Whether an individual has few or many suggestions depends largely on native differences. It depends, also, however in part, on acquaintance with a given field. And the fertility of suggestions may be increased by a careful survey and re-survey of the facts at hand, and by the deliberate searching-out of further facts from which further suggestions may be derived. Suggestions differ, finally, in regard to depth or significance; by nature and by training, individuals produce ideas of varying degrees of significance in the solution of problems. Ease and versatility of suggestion not infrequently connote superficiality; to make profound and far-reaching suggestions takes time.

It is further requisite, as already pointed out, that the analyzing mind be free from prejudice. Thinking is continually qualified, as we have seen, by preferences and aversions. Every prejudice, every a priori belief we have, literally prejudges the inquiry. Whenever we are moved by a "predominant passion," we cannot survey the facts impartially. It is hard to think clearly and justly about people whom we love or hate, or to estimate with precision the morality of actions toward which we are moved by very strong impulses. It is only the mind that remains resolutely emancipated from the compulsions of habit and circumstances, that persists in surveying facts as they are, letting the chips, so to speak, fall where they will, that can be really effective in thinking. In the physical sciences it is comparatively easy to start with no prejudices; in social inquiries where we are bound by traditions, loyalties, and antipathies it is much more difficult.

Not the least essential to effective thinking is persistence and thoroughness of investigation. Since we are primarily creatures of action, we crave definiteness and immediacy of decision, and there is a constant temptation to rush to a conclusion. In order to attain genuine completeness of the facts and certainty and accuracy as to what the facts are, long, unwavering persistence is required. There must be persistence, moreover, not merely because of the length of time and the amount of labor involved in the collection of data; steadiness is required in holding in mind the end or purpose of the investigation. Too often in inquiry into the facts of human relations, the specific problem is forgotten and facts are collected with an indiscriminate omnivorousness. There is in such cases plodding, but of an unenlightened and fruitless sort. Not only persistency but consistency is required. The investigation must be steadily carried on with persistent and unwavering reference to the specific business in hand.

Effective thinking depends further on familiarity with the field of facts under investigation. Even the most ready and fertile of minds, the most orderly habits of thought, are at a loss without a store of material; that is, facts from which suggestions may arise. And this store of materials can only be attained through a thoroughgoing acquaintance with the particular field of inquiry. Thinking aims to explain the relations between facts, and an intimate acquaintance with facts involved in a given situation is prerequisite to any generalization whatsoever.

While the native fertility of given minds cannot be controlled, suggestions can be controlled indirectly. Suggestions arise from the data at hand, but the data themselves change under more precise conditions of observation, and the suggestions that arise from them change in consequence. The whole elaborate apparatus of science, its instruments of precision, are designed to yield an exact determination of the precise nature of the data at hand. The scientist attempts to prevent "reading-in" of meanings. "Reading-in" of meanings may be due to various causes. In the first place there may be purely physical causes: a dim light, a fog, a cracked window-pane are examples of how ordinary observation may lead us astray. Again, physiological causes may be at work to distort sensations: imperfection's in the sense organs, fatigue, illness, and the like are examples. But not least among the causes of error must be set psychological causes. That is, we read facts differently in the light of what we fear or hope, like or dislike, expect or recall. We see things the way we want them to be, or the way previous experience has taught us to expect them to be.

Both physiological and psychological causes may be checked up by instruments. Indeed, one of the chief utilities of instruments of precision is that they do serve to check up personal error. They prevent scientific inquirers from reading in meanings to which they are led by hope, fear, preference, or aversion. They help us to see the facts as they are, not as for various social and personal reasons we want or expect them to be. They help to give precise and permanent impressions which are not dependent for their discovery or for their preservation on the precariousness of human observation or memory.

CLASSIFICATION. Next only in importance to accurate observation of the facts is their classification. Objects of experience as they come to us through the senses appear in a sequence which is random and chaotic. But in order to deal effectively with our experience we must arrange facts according to their likenesses and differences. Whenever we discover certain striking similarities between facts, we classify them, place them in a class, knowing that what will apply to one will apply to all. Some logicians go so far as to say that science cannot go any further than accurate classification. In the words of Poincare:

The most interesting facts are those which may serve many times; these are the facts which have a chance of coming up again. We have been so fortunate as to have been born in a world where there are such. Suppose that instead of sixty chemical elements there were sixty milliards of them, that they were not some common, the others rare, but that they were equally distributed. Then, every time we picked up a new pebble there would be great probability of its being formed of some unknown substance; all that we knew of other pebbles would be worthless for it; before each new object we should be as the new-born babe; like it we could only obey our caprices or our needs. Biologists would be just as much at a loss if there were only individuals and no species, and if heredity did not make sons like their fathers.[1]

[Footnote 1: Poincare: Foundations of Science, p. 363.]

The aim of classification in science is grouping in such a way as to make manifest at once similarities in the behavior of objects. That characteristic is selected as a basis of classification with which is correlated the greatest number of other characteristics belonging to the facts in question. It would be possible to classify all living things according to color, but such a classification would be destitute of scientific value. Biology offers some interesting examples of how an illuminating classification may be made on the basis of a single characteristic. It has been found, for example, that the differences or resemblances of animals are correlated with corresponding differences or resemblances in their teeth. In general, the function of classification may be summarized in Huxley's definition as modified by Jevons:

By the classification of any series of objects is meant the actual or ideal arrangement together of those things which are like and the separation of those things which are unlike, the purpose of the arrangement being, primarily, to disclose the correlations or laws of union of properties and circumstances, and, secondarily, to facilitate the operations of the mind in clearly conceiving and retaining in memory the characters of the object in question.

It should be noted that the object of classification is not simply to indicate similarities but to indicate distinctions or differences. In scientific inquiry, differences are as crucial in the forming of generalizations as similarities. It is only possible to classify a given fact under a scientific generalization when the given fact is set off from other facts, when it is seen to be the result of certain special conditions.

If a man infers from a single sample of grain as to the grade of wheat of the car as a whole, it is induction, and under certain circumstances, a sound induction; other cases are resorted to simply for the sake of rendering that induction more guarded and correct. In the case of the various samples of grain, it is the fact that the samples are unlike, at least in the part of the carload from which they are taken, that is important. Were it not for this unlikeness, their likeness in quality would be of no avail in assisting inference.[1]

[Footnote 1: Dewey: How We Think, pp. 89-90.]

EXPERIMENTAL VARIATION OF CONDITIONS. In forming our generalizations from the observation of situations as they occur in Nature, we are at a disadvantage. If we observe cases just as we find them, there is much present that is irrelevant to our problem; much that is of genuine importance in its solution is hidden or obscure. In experimental investigation we are, in the words of Sir John Herschel, "active observers"; we deliberately invent crucial or test cases. That is, we deliberately arrange conditions so that every factor is definitely known and recognized. We then introduce into this set of completely known conditions one change, one new circumstance, and observe its effect. In Mill's phrase, we "take a phenomenon home with us," and watch its behavior. Mill states clearly the outstanding advantage of experimentation over observation:

When we can produce a phenomenon artificially, we can take it, as it were, home with us, and observe it in the midst of circumstances with which in all other respects we are accurately acquainted. If we desire to know what are the effects of the cause A, and are able to produce A by means at our disposal, we can generally determine at our own discretion ... the whole of the circumstances which shall be present along with it; and thus, knowing exactly the simultaneous state of everything else which is within the reach of A's influence, we have only to observe what alteration is made in that state by the presence of A.

For example, by the electric machine we can produce, in the midst of known circumstances, the phenomena which Nature exhibits on a grander scale in the form of lightning and thunder. Now let any one consider what amount of knowledge of the effects and laws of electric agency mankind could have obtained from the mere observation of thunderstorms, and compare it with that which they have gained, and may expect to gain, from electrical and galvanic experiments....

When we have succeeded in isolating the phenomenon which is the subject of inquiry, by placing it among known circumstances, we may produce further variations of circumstances to any extent, and of such kinds as we think best calculated to bring the laws of the phenomenon into a clear light. By introducing one well-defined circumstance after another into the experiment, we obtain assurance of the manner in which the phenomenon behaves under an indefinite variety of possible circumstances. Thus, chemists, after having obtained some newly discovered substance in a pure state, ... introduce various other substances, one by one, to ascertain whether it will combine with them, or decompose them, and with what result; and also apply heat or electricity or pressure, to discover what will happen to the substance under each of these circumstances.[1]

[Footnote 1: Mill: Logic (London, 1872), vol. I, pp. 441-42.]

Through experiment, we are thus enabled to observe the relation of specific elements in a situation. We are, furthermore, enabled to observe phenomena which are so rare in occurrence that it is impossible to form generalizations from them or improbable that we should even notice them: "We might have to wait years or centuries to meet accidentally with facts which we can readily produce at any moment in a laboratory; and it is probable that many of the chemical substances now known, and many excessively useful products, would never have been discovered at all, by waiting till Nature presented them spontaneously to our observation." And phenomena, such as that of electricity, which can only be understood when the conditions of their occurrence are varied, are presented to us in Nature most frequently in a fixed and invariable form.

GENERALIZATIONS, THEIR ELABORATION AND TESTING. So far we have been concerned with the steps in the control of suggestion, the reexamination of the facts so that significant suggestions may be derived, and the elimination of the significant from the insignificant in the elements of the situation as it first confronts us. In logically elaborating a suggestion, as we have already seen, we trace out the bearings of a given situation. We expand it; we see what it implies, what it means. Thus, if we came, for example, to a meeting that had been scheduled, and found no one present, we might have several solutions arise in our minds. The meeting, we might suppose, had been transferred to another room. If that were the case, there would probably be some notice posted. In all cases of deductive elaboration, we go through what might be called the If-Then process. If such-and-such is the case, then such-and-such will follow. We can then verify our suggested solution to a problem, by going back to the facts, to see whether they correspond with the implications of our suggestion. We may, to take another example, think that a man who enters our office is an insurance agent, or a book solicitor who had said he would call upon us at a definite date. If such is the case, he will say such-and-such things. If he does say them, then our suggestion is seen to be correct. The advantages of developing a suggestion include the fact that some link in the logical chain may bear a more obvious relation to our problem than did the undeveloped suggestion itself.

The systematic sciences consist of such sets of principles so related that any single term implies certain others, which imply certain others and so on ad infinitum.

After the facts have been elaborated, the generalization, however plausible it may seem, must be subjected to experimental corroboration. That is, if a suggestion is found through local elaboration to mean A, B, C, then the situation must be reexamined to see if the facts to be found tally with the facts deduced. In the case cited, the suggestion that the man who entered the room was the insurance agent we expected would be verified if he immediately broached the subject and the fact, say, of a previous conversation. In the case of disease, if the illness is typhoid, we shall find certain specific conditions in the patient. If these are found, the suggestion of typhoid is verified.

The reliability of generalizations made by this scientific procedure varies according to several factors. It varies, in the first place, according to the correspondence of the predictions made on the basis of the generalization, with subsequent events. The reason we say the law of gravitation holds true is because in every instance where observations or experiments have been made, the results have tallied precisely with expectations based upon the generalization. We can, to a certain extent, determine the reliability of a generalization before comparing our predictions with subsequent events. If a generalization made contradicts laws that have been established in so many instances that they are practically beyond peradventure, it is suspect. A law, for example, that should be an exception to the laws of motion or gravitation, is a priori dubious.

If an induction conflicts with stronger inductions, or with conclusions capable of being correctly deduced from them, then, unless on reconsideration it should appear that some of the stronger inductions have been expressed with greater universality than their evidence warrants, the weaker one must give way. The opinion so long prevalent that a comet, or any other unusual appearance in the heavenly regions, was the precursor of calamities to mankind, or to those at least who witnessed it; the belief in the veracity of the oracles of Delphi or Dodona; the reliance on astrology, or on the weather prophecies in almanacs, were doubtless inductions supposed to be grounded on experience.... What has really put an end to these insufficient inductions is their inconsistency with the stronger inductions subsequently obtained by scientific inquiry, respecting the causes on which terrestrial events really depend.[1]

[Footnote 1: Mill: Logic (London, 1872), vol. I, pp. 370-71.]

THE QUANTITATIVE BASIS OF SCIENTIFIC PROCEDURE. Science is science, some scientists insist, in so far as it is mathematical. That is, in the precise determination of facts, and in their repetition with a view to their exact determination, quantities must be known. The sciences have developed in exactness, in so far as they have succeeded in expressing their formulations in numerical terms. The physical sciences, such as physics and chemistry, which have been able to frame their generalizations from precise quantities, have been immeasurably more certain and secure than such sciences as psychology and sociology, where the measurement of exact quantities is more difficult and rare. Jevons writes in his Principles of Science:

As physical science advances, it becomes more and more accurately quantitative. Questions of simple logical fact resolve themselves after a while into questions of degree, time, distance, or weight. Forces hardly suspected to exist by one generation are clearly recognized by the next, and precisely measured by the third generation.[1]

[Footnote 1: Jevons: Principles of Science, p. 270.]

The history of science exhibits a constant progress from rude guesses to precise measurement of quantities. In the earliest history of astronomy there were attempts at quantitative determinations, very crude, of course, in comparison with the exactness of present-day scientific methods.

Every branch of knowledge commences with quantitative notions of a very rude character. After we have far progressed, it is often amusing to look back into the infancy of the science, and contrast present with past methods. At Greenwich Observatory in the present day, the hundredth part of a second is not thought an inconsiderable portion of time. The ancient Chaldreans recorded an eclipse to the nearest hour, and the early Alexandrian astronomers thought it superfluous to distinguish between the edge and center of the sun. By the introduction of the astrolabe, Ptolemy, and the later Alexandrian astronomers could determine the places of the heavenly bodies within about ten minutes of arc. Little progress then ensued for thirteen centuries, until Tycho Brahe made the first great step toward accuracy, not only by employing better instruments, but even more by ceasing to regard an instrument as correct.... He also took notice of the effects of atmospheric refraction, and succeeded in attaining an accuracy often sixty times as great as that of Ptolemy. Yet Tycho and Hevelius often erred several minutes in the determination of a star's place, and it was a great achievement of Roemer and Flamsteed to reduce this error to seconds. Bradley, the modern Hipparchus, carried on the improvement, his errors in right ascension, according to Bessel, being under one second of time, and those of declination under four seconds of arc. In the present day the average error of a single observation is probably reduced to the half or the quarter of what it was in Bradley's time; and further extreme accuracy is attained by the multiplication of observations, and their skillful combination according to the theory of error. Some of the more important constants... have been determined within a tenth part of a second of space.[2]

[Footnote 2: Ibid., pp. 271-72.]

The precise measurement of quantities is important because we can, in the first place, only through quantitative determinations be sure we have made accurate observations, observations uncolored by personal idiosyncrasies. Both errors of observation and errors of judgment are checked up and averted by exact quantitative measurements. The relations of phenomena, moreover, are so complex that specific causes and effects can only be understood when they are given precise quantitative determination. In investigating the solubility of salts, for example, we find variability depending on differences in temperature, pressure, the presence of other salts already dissolved, and the like. The solubility of salt in water differs again from its solubility in alcohol, ether, carbon, bisulphide. Generalization about the solubility of salt, therefore, depends on the exact measurement of the phenomenon under all these conditions.[1]

[Footnote 1: See Jevons, p, 279 ff.]

The importance of exact measurement in scientific discovery and generalization may be illustrated briefly from one instance in the history of chemistry. The discovery of the chemical element argon came about through some exact measurements by Lord Rayleigh and Sir William Ramsay of the nitrogen and the oxygen in a glass flask. It was found that the nitrogen derived from air was not altogether pure; that is, there were very minute differences in the weighings of nitrogen made from certain of its compounds and the weight obtained by removing oxygen, water, traces of carbonic acid, and other impurities from the atmospheric air. It was found that the very slightly heavier weight in one case was caused by the presence of argon (about one and one third times as heavy as nitrogen) and some other elementary gases. The discovery was here clearly due to the accurate measurement which made possible the discovery of this minute discrepancy.

It must be noted in general that accuracy in measurement is immediately dependent on the instruments of precision available. It has frequently been pointed out that the Greeks, although incomparably fresh, fertile, and direct in their thinking, yet made such a comparatively slender contribution to scientific knowledge precisely because they had no instruments for exact measurement. The thermometer made possible the science of heat. The use of the balance has been in large part responsible for advances in chemistry.

The degree to which sciences have attained quantitative accuracy varies among the physical sciences. The phenomena of light are not yet subject to accurate measurement; many natural phenomena have not yet been made the subject of measurement at all. Such are the intensity of sound, the phenomena of taste and smell, the magnitude of atoms, the temperature of the electric spark or of the sun's atmosphere.[1]

[Footnote 1: See Jevons, p. 273.]

The sciences tend, in general, to become more and more quantitative. All phenomena "exist in space and involve molecular movements, measurable in velocity and extent." The ideal of all sciences is thus to reduce all phenomena to measurements of mass and motion. This ideal is obviously far from being attained. Especially in the social sciences are quantitative measurements difficult, and in these sciences we must remain therefore at best in the region of shrewd guesses or fairly reliable probability.

STATISTICS AND PROBABILITY. While in the social sciences, exact quantitative measurements are difficult, they are to an extent possible, and to the extent that they are possible we can arrive at fairly accurate generalizations as to the probable occurrence of phenomena. There are many phenomena where the elements are so complex that they cannot be analyzed and invariable causal relations established.

In a study of the phenomena of the weather, for example, the phenomena are so exceedingly complex that anything approaching a complete statement of their elements is quite out of the question. The fallibility of most popular generalizations in these fields is evidence of the difficulty of dealing with such facts. Must we be content then simply to guess at such phenomena? ... In instances of this sort, another method ... becomes important: The Method of Statistics. In statistics we have an exact enumeration of cases. If a small number of cases does not enable us to detect the causal relations of a phenomenon, it sometimes happens that a large number, accurately counted, and taken from a field widely extended in time and space, will lead to a solution of the problem.[1]

[Footnote 1: Jones; Logic, Inductive and Deductive, p. 190.]

If we find, in a wide variety of instances, two phenomena occurring in a certain constant correlation, we infer a causal relation. If the variations in the frequency of one correspond to variations in the frequency of the other, there is probability of more than connection by coincidence.

The correlation between phenomena may be measured mathematically; it is possible to express in figures the exact relations between the occurrence of one phenomenon and the occurrence of another. The number which expresses this relation is called the coefficient of correlation. This coefficient expresses relationship in terms of the mean values of the two series of phenomena by measuring the amount each individual phenomenon varies from its respective mean. Suppose, for example, that in correlating crime and unemployment, the coefficient of correlation were found to be .47. If in every case of unemployment crime were found and in every case of crime, unemployment, the coefficient of correlation would be +1. If crime were never found in unemployment, and unemployment never in crime, the coefficient of correlation would be -1, indicating a perfect inverse relationship. A coefficient of 0 would indicate that there is no relationship. The coefficient of .47 would accordingly indicate a significant but not a "high" correlation between crime and unemployment.

We cannot consider here all the details of statistical methods, but attention may be called to a few of the more significant features of the process. Statistics is a science, and consists in much more than the mere counting of cases.

With the collection of statistical data, only the first step has been taken. The statistics in that condition are only raw material showing nothing. They are not an instrument of investigation any more than a kiln of bricks is a monument of architecture. They need to be arranged, classified, tabulated, and brought into connection with other statistics by the statistician. Then only do they become an instrument of investigation, just as a tool is nothing more than a mass of wood or metal, except in the hands of a skilled workman.[1]

[Footnote 1: Mayo-Smith: Statistics and Sociology, p. 18.]

The essential steps in a statistical investigation are: (1) the collection of material, (2) its tabulation, (3) the summary, and (4) a critical examination of the results. The terms are almost self-explanatory. There are, however, several general points of method to be noted.

In the collection of data a wide field must be covered, to be sure that we are dealing with invariable relations instead of with mere coincidences, "or overemphasizing the importance of one out of a number of cooeperating causes." Tabulation of the data collected is very important, since classification of the data does much to suggest the causal relations sought. The headings under which data will be collected depend on the purposes of the investigation. In general, statistics can suggest generalizations, rather than establish them. They indicate probability, not invariable relation.[2]

[Footnote 2: See Jones: Logic, pp. 213-25, for a discussion of Probability.]

SCIENCE AS AN INSTRUMENT OF HUMAN PROGRESS. We have, in an earlier section of this chapter, referred to the practical value of science. "Man's power of deliberate control of his own affairs depends upon ability to direct energies to use; an ability which is, in turn, dependent upon insight into nature's processes. Whatever natural science may be for the specialist,... it is knowledge of the conditions of human action."[3] And the wider, the more complete and the more penetrating our knowledge of the world in which we live, the more extended become the boundaries of human action. Through a knowledge of natural processes, men have passed from a frightened subjection to Nature to its conscious control. And the fruits of that control are, as we have already had occasion to notice, all-pervading in practical life. That complete transformation of life known as the Industrial Revolution, which came about with such swiftness and completeness in the early nineteenth century, and whose effects have not yet ceased to accumulate, was the direct outcome of the application of the experimental science which had begun in the sixteenth. Some of the consequences of the application of theoretical investigation to practical life have already been noted. There are first the more obvious facts of the inventions, great and small—the railways, steamships, electric transportation, automobiles, and telephones—which have changed in countless details our daily life. There are the profound and all-pervasive changes which have been brought about in industrial and social relations: the building-up of our vast industrial centers, the change from small-scale handicrafts to large-scale machine production, the factory system, with its concomitants of immensely increased resources and immensely complicated problems of human life. Science in the short span of three centuries has shown how rapid and immediate could be the fruits of human control of Nature, and its further fruits are incalculable.

[Footnote 3: Dewey: Democracy and Education, p. 267.]

Science has indeed already begun to affect men's attitude towards experience as well as their material progress. It is only when men set out with the conscious realization that intelligence does make a difference in the world, that science becomes articulate. Science is the guarantee of progress. It has shown men that the future is to some extent in their own hands; that by dint of a laborious and detailed application of intelligence to the processes of nature, those processes can be controlled in the interests of human welfare.

Science has led men to look to the future instead of the past. The coincidence of the ideal of progress with the advance of science is not a mere coincidence. Before this advance men placed the golden age in remote antiquity. Now they face the future with a firm belief that intelligence properly used can do away with evils once thought inevitable. To subjugate devastating disease is no longer a dream; the hope of abolishing poverty is not Utopian.[1]

[Footnote 1: Dewey: Democracy and Education, pp. 262-63.]

But science may be used for any end. It reveals the relations of phenomena, relations which hold for all men. It shows what causes are connected with what consequents, and, as already pointed out, in the knowledge of causes lies the possible control of effects. We can secure the results we desire, by discovering what antecedents must first be established. Science is thus a fund of common resources. Specific causes are revealed to be connected with specific effects, and men, by making a choice of antecedents, can secure the consequences they desire. But which effects they will desire depends on the instincts, standards, and habits of the individual, and the traditions and ideals of the group. A knowledge of chemistry may be used for productive industrial processes, or in the invention of poison gas. Expert acquaintance with psychology and educational methods may be used to impress upon a nation an arbitrary type of life (an accusation justly brought against the Prussian educational system), or to promote the specific possibilities that each individual displays.

Not only are the fruits of scientific inquiry used in different ways by different individuals and groups, but scientific inquiry is itself affected by the prevailing interests and mode of life. What inquiries shall be furthered depends on what the individual or group feels it important to know. From a social point of view, certain scientific developments are of more urgency and imperativeness than others. During an emergency, as during the Great War, it might be necessary to turn all the energies of scientific men into immediately productive pursuits. And, since the pursuit of inquiry on a large scale demands large resources, those researches which give promise of beneficent human consequences will the more readily command social sanction and approval and will be developed at the expense of more remote speculations however intrinsically interesting these latter may be.

Science has proved so valuable a human instrument that it has attained a moral responsibility. Men have increasingly come to realize that the pressing problems of our industrial life require for their solution not the confusions and incompetences of passion and prejudice, but an application of the fruits of scientific inquiry. Science has already so completely demonstrated its vast fruitfulness in human welfare, that it must be watched with jealous vigilance. It must result as it began, in the improvement of human welfare.[1] But what constitutes human welfare is a question which leads us into the final activity of the Career of Reason, Morals and Moral Valuation, man's attempt to determine what happiness is, and how he may attain it.

[Footnote 1: We have already noted the danger of too complete a commitment of science to immediately practical results. This narrows instead of broadening possibility. As Mr. F. P. Keppel points out in a recent article, "Scholarship in War" (Columbia University Quarterly, July, 1919), some of the most important and immediately practical contributions during the Great War came from the ranks of those who would be regarded as "pure theorists."]



CHAPTER XV

MORALS AND MORAL VALUATION

THE PRE-CONDITIONS OF MORALITY—INSTINCT, IMPULSE, AND DESIRE. In Art and Science, man attempts to transform the world of nature into conditions more in conformity with his desires. In the enterprise of Morals, man attempts to discover how to control his own nature in the attainment of happiness. We have already had occasion to see that Art, in the broad sense of human contrivance, is made necessary by the incongruity between nature and human nature. We shall examine now the conditions which make it necessary and make it possible for man to consider and to control those elementary impulses with which he is endowed.

The origin of the moral problem will become clearer after a brief recapitulation of those elements of original nature which form the basis of all human action. We have seen that human beings are equipped, apart from education or training, with certain tendencies to act in certain definite ways, given certain definite stimuli. Any single activity of an average human being in a modern civilized community is compounded of so many modifications of original tendencies to action that these latter seem often altogether obliterated. The conditions of civilized life, moreover, place continual checks on the free activity of any given impulse, and there are so many stimuli playing upon an individual at once that the responses called out tend to inhibit each other. The particular thing we say to an acquaintance we happen to meet is not determined by a single original impulse, by love or hate, fear or sympathy, pugnacity or pity. It is a compound of some or of most of these. On the other hand, no matter how complicated or sophisticated human action becomes, it is built out of these same impulses, which were operative when human beings had not yet passed out of savagery. We may check and control our responses through habitual repressions, through deliberate forethought, through conscious or mechanical acquiescence in the ways of the group among which we live. But these original impulses are still the mainspring of our activities.

The complex, highly artificial character of our civilization often obscures the presence of these powerful instinctive tendencies, but that they are present and powerful several facts bear witness. They manifest themselves, as the newer psychology of the subconscious has repeatedly pointed out, in roundabout ways; they are, in the technical phrase, sublimated. Instincts find, as it were, substitute realizations. This process of sublimation of unfulfilled desire has been noted particularly with regard to the sex instinct, but the principle applies to the others.

The continual suppression of instincts results in various forms of morbidity, in what Graham Wallas calls "baulked dispositions." To say that instincts are repressed, is to say there is a maladjustment between the individual as he comes into the world, and the world as he finds it. This maladjustment may vary in intensity. It may be exhibited in nothing more serious than boredom, or petulance, or hyper-sensitiveness. It may be a chronic sense of not fitting in, of being lost in a blind alley. One has but to review one's list of acquaintances to see how many people there are who feel somehow frustrated in the work they happen to be doing, who feel themselves inexplicably at odds with the world. Graham Wallas well describes the situation when he writes:

For we cannot in Saint Paul's sense mortify our dispositions. If they are not stimulated, they do not therefore die, nor is the human being what he would be if they had never existed. If we leave unstimulated, or, to use a shorter term, if we "baulk" any one of our main dispositions, Curiosity, Property, Trial and Error, Sex, and the rest, we produce in ourselves a state of nervous strain. It may be desirable in any particular case of conduct that we should do so, but we ought to know what we are doing.

The baulking of each disposition produces its own type of strain; but the distinctions between the types are, so far, unnamed and unrecognized, and a trained psychologist would do a real service to civilized life if he would carefully observe and describe them.[1]

[Footnote 1: Wallas: The Great Society, p. 65.]

The presence of instinctive activities is seen in stark immediacy and directness every now and then in civilized life. Lynchings and mob violence in general are illustrations of what happens when groups throw to the winds the multiple inhibitions of custom and law. And the records of the criminal courts exhibit more cases than are commonly realized of sheer crimes of violence. In some instances these can be set down as pathological, but in many more they are normal instincts breaking through the fixed channels set by public opinion, tradition, and legal compulsion. On a smaller scale an outburst of anger, a fit of temper, sulk or spleen, exhibits the enduring though often obscured presence of instinctive tendencies in civilized life.

THE CONFLICT OF INTERESTS BETWEEN MEN AND GROUPS. How comes it, then, that men whose whole activity is a complication of these powerful original tendencies to action should not follow these native impulses freely? The answer is that men not only live, but live together. Wherever human wants, as in any group, even a small one, must be filled through cooperation, accommodation, compromise, give-and-take, adjustment must be made. "Man," to adapt Kant's phrase, "cannot get on with his fellows; and he cannot get on without them." Other men are necessary to help us fulfill our desires, and yet our desires conflict with theirs. The dual fact of cooperation and conflict is, in a sense, the root of the moral problem. How is one individual to attain happiness without at the same time interfering with the happiness of others? How can the desires with which all men come into the world be fulfilled for all men?

The adjustment of these problems is at once complicated and facilitated by the fact that one of man's most powerful native desires is, as we have already seen, his desire to please other men. This extreme sensitivity to the praise and blame of his fellows operates powerfully to qualify men's other instincts. The ruthlessness with which men might otherwise fulfill their desires is checked by the fact that within themselves there is a conflict between the desire to win other sorts of gratification, and the desire to win the praise of others and to avoid their blame. This is simply one instance of what we shall have occasion presently to note, that not only is there a conflict between men in the fulfillment of their native instincts, but within individuals an adjustment must be made between competing impulses themselves.

The kinds of conflict that occur between men in the fulfillment of their original native tendencies, are as various as those tendencies and their combinations. It may be a conflict, as in primitive life, between individuals seeking food from the same source. It may be a clash in the pursuit of one form or another of self-enhancement, enhancement which can come to only some individual out of a group. The sex instinct has afforded, in the case of the "eternal triangle," an example of the sharing by two people of an imperious desire for precisely the same object of satisfaction. These conflicts of interest are an inevitable result of the constitution of human nature. It is perfectly natural that human beings constituted with largely identical impulses should not infrequently seek identical satisfactions. Groups as well as individuals may come into collision, and for analogous reasons. Class divisions over the distribution of wealth, international wars over the distribution of territory, are sufficiently familiar examples.

THE LEVELS OF MORAL ACTION—CUSTOM—THE ESTABLISHMENT OF "FOLKWAYS." No anthropologist seems to have discovered anywhere individuals living totally alone or in total oblivion to the needs or interests of others. The human necessity for cooeperation and the human desire for companionship bring individuals together. And individuals, once living together, find some modus vivendi. Adjustments are, in general, effected through established and authoritative "folkways."[1] That is, certain acts come to be recognized as sanctioned or as disapproved by the group. And these sanctions or disapprovals are powerful in the control of human action. The fact that individuals live and must live together is thus the surest guarantee that they will not, once they have grown old enough to communicate with other people, altogether follow their immediate capricious desires.

[Footnote 1: Professor Sumner's convenient term.]

The reason for the power of social approvals and disapprovals over individuals lies partly in the fact, already noted, of the human being's extremely high sensitivity to the praise and blame of others. But part of the explanation is social rather than psychological. Even primitive tribes take special pains to make public and pervasive the commands and prohibitions which have become affixed to given acts. The mere fact that an act is customary is itself a sufficiently strong guarantee that it will be practiced, since the human being tends to perform, as he likes to perform, the habitual. But in primitive life, the enforcement of custom is not left to the influence of habit. The prohibitions and sanctions, both in savage and in civilized society, are made into law. In the former instance, there are most elaborate devices and institutions for enforcing the traditional approvals and disapprovals. Tabus are one important instrument of the enforcement of social checks upon individual action; "tabus are perhaps not so much a means for enforcing custom as they are themselves customs invested with peculiar and awful sanction. They prohibit or ban any contact with certain persons or objects under penalty of danger from unseen beings."

Through ritual certain acts come to be performed with great regularity, thoroughness, detail, and solemnity. "In primitive life it [ritual] is widely and effectively used to insure for educational, political, and domestic customs obedience to the group standards." In contemporary life, certain social forms and observances, as well as certain religious ceremonies, are examples of the enforcement of given acts, by ritual.

Praise and blame are equally effective enforcements of certain types of action and of the avoidance of others. In primitive life, praise is as likely as not to take the form of art—decorations, costumes, songs, and tattoos. In modern life, as we have seen, praise and blame take the form of public opinion, as expressed by friends, acquaintances, newspapers, and the like.[1] Praise and blame are not so fixed and rigid in civilized communities; individuals move freely among diverse groups whose standards differ. But group approval is none the less effective.

[Footnote 1: See page 106.]

In primitive life and, though less patently, in contemporary society, physical force is the ultimate power for enforcing custom. Primitive chiefs are usually the strong men of the tribes; and behind law in modern social organization is the physical power of the State to enforce it.

MORALITY AS CONFORMITY TO THE ESTABLISHED. The beginning of morals is thus to be found in conformity to the established or customary. The criterion of morality is compliance—compliance with the regular, the socially approved, the common (that is, the communal) ways of action. Apart from the consequences of violation, violation per se is impure, unholy, immoral. The terms are, in some cases, interchangeable. In primitive life, violations are regarded with particular horror, because they are frequently held to be not only infringements of established ways of the tribe, but as offenses against the gods, offenses which involve the whole tribe in the retributive punishments of the gods. Violation of the customary may, indeed, apart from arousing intellectual disapproval, provoke a genuine revulsion of feeling on the part of a group which has acquired certain fixed habits. We still feel emotionally shocked by the infringement of a custom that we do not intellectually value highly. If we examine our moral furniture we find it made up of an immense number of early acquired inhibitions or "checks." These not only prevent us from violating, at least without qualms, standards to which we have early been trained; they make deviations or irregularities on the part of others appear as "immoral," even before or without our intellectually classifying them as such. There are adults, for example, who cannot outgrow the feeling to which they have early been habituated, that card-playing at any time, or baseball-playing on Sunday, is "evil," even though they are no longer intellectually affected by scruples in those respects. There is significance in the fact that by speaking of "irregularities" in a man's conduct, we signify. or imply moral disapproval.

The group, in any stage of civilization, rewards in some form conformity to group standards, and punishes infringements of them. Punishment may be nothing more tangible than disrepute or ostracism; it may be as serious as execution. Reward may range from a decoration or a chorus of praise to all forms of compensation in the way of wealth, rank, and power.

We have noted how sanctions and prohibitions are made public and effective among the members of a group. But it is further regarded as important by the group that these customs, positive and negative, should be handed down from the current to succeeding generations. In primitive life transmission of the traditional practices is made a very special occasion in the form of initiation ceremonies.

[Initiation ceremonies] are held with the purpose of inducting boys into the privileges of manhood and into the full life of the group. They are calculated at every step to impress upon the initiate his own ignorance and helplessness in contrast with the wisdom and power of the group; and as the mystery with which they are conducted imposes reverence for the elders and the authorities of the group, so the recital of the traditions and performances of the tribe, the long series of ritual acts, common participation in the mystic dance and song and decorations, serve to reinforce the ties that bind the tribe.[1]

[Footnote 1: Dewey and Tufts: Ethics, pp. 57-58.]

In civilized life, the whole institution of education, as has been repeatedly emphasized in these pages, is designed to transmit to the young those habits of thought, feeling, and action which their influential elders wish to perpetuate. As was noted in connection with man's gregariousness, the normal becomes the "respectable," the regular becomes the "proper." We still speak of things that it is not "nice" to do. This tendency to identify the moral with the customary is brought about through early habituating the members of the group to the group standards and securing for them thereby the emotional support that goes with all habitual action.

Morality at this stage is clearly social in its origins and its operations. The standards are group standards, and the individual's single duty is obedience and conformity to the established social sanctions.

THE VALUES OF CUSTOMARY MORALITY. The problem of morals begins, as we have seen, in the collision of interests of similarly constituted individuals living together. Adjustments of conflicting interests are effected by group standards more or less consciously transmitted and enforced by education, public opinion, and law. We shall note presently that reflection operates to modify and criticize these customary approvals and disapprovals and to substitute more effective standards. But whether on the level of custom or reflection, the moral problem is essentially a social problem, the problem of the adjustment of the desires of individuals living together. For an individual living altogether alone in the world there could hardly be a moral problem, a question of "ought." There might be problems of how to attain satisfaction, but no sense of duty or moral obligation. Custom is the first great stage through which morality passes, and the only form in which morality exists for many people. In civilized life there is, to be sure, considerable reflection and querying of custom, but for the vast majority of men "right" and "wrong" are determined by the standards to which their early education and environment have accustomed them. In primitive life, reflective criticism on the part of the individual is almost unknown, and custom remains the great arbiter of action, the outstanding source of social and moral control.

The values of custom as a moral force are, in both primitive and civilized life, notable and not to be despised. Custom is, in the first place, frequently rational in its origin. That is, in general, those acts are made habitual in the group which are associated with the general welfare. The customary is the "right," but those activities most frequently come to be regarded as "right" which are favorable to the welfare of the group. In the literal struggle for existence which characterizes primitive life, those tribes may alone be expected to survive whose customs do promote the welfare of their members. Persistence by a group in customs like infanticide or excessive restriction of population will result in their extinction. Customs are, for the most part, standards of action established in the light of the conceptions of well-being as understood at the time of their origin. The intensity with which they are maintained, enforced, and transmitted is an indication of how supremely and practically important they are regarded by primitive groups.

Custom is valuable, if for nothing else, in the fact that it makes possible some accommodation or adjustment of competing individual interests—and on the basis of a widely considered social welfare. Customs are social, they are binding on all; they apply to all, and to the extent that they do promote welfare, they promote, within limits, the welfare of all. A man conforming to custom is thereby consulting something other than his arbitrary caprice or personal desire. On the level of customary morality, action through conformity to custom is referred to a wider context than unconsidered individual impulse; it is, for better or worse, performed with reference to the group with whose standards it is in conformity. It is the beginning of the socialization of human interests. Though unconsciously, the man conforming to a custom is considering his fellows, and the values and traditions which have become current among them.

Customs, moreover, are the first invasion of moral chaos. They establish enduring standards; they give common and permanent bases of action. It is only through the establishment and transmission of customary standards that one generation is in any way superior to its predecessors. Customs, in civilized life, include all the established effective ways of civilization, its arts, its sciences, its industries, and its useful modes of cooeperation.

If a plague carried off the members of a society all at once, it is obvious that the group would be permanently done for. Yet the death of each of its constituent members is as certain as if a plague took them off all at once. But the graded difference in age, the fact that some are born as some die, makes possible through transmission of ideas and practices the constant reweaving of the social fabric. Yet this renewal is not automatic. Unless pains are taken to see that genuine and thorough transmission takes place, the most civilized group will relapse into barbarism and then into savagery.[1]

[Footnote 1: Dewey: Democracy and Education, p. 4.]

In all levels of civilization, there is a conscious transmission of those social habits which are regarded as of importance. If this transmission were suddenly to cease, not only would each generation have to start afresh, but it would be altogether impossible for it to grow to maturity.

THE DEFECTS OF CUSTOMARY MORALITY. While custom is thus valuable as a moral agent in establishing standards of social life and rendering them continuous and enduring, a morality that is completely based upon it has serious defects. Though customs may start as allegedly or actually useful practices, they tend, so strong is the influence of habit over the individual, to outlive their usefulness, and may become, indeed, altogether disadvantageous conventions. "Dr. Arthur Smith tells of the advantage it would be in some parts of China to build a door on the south side of the house, in order to get the breeze, in hot weather." The simple and sufficient answer to such a suggestion is, "We don't build doors on the south side."

We have but to examine our own civilization to see that there are many customs which are practiced not for any good assignable reason, but simply because they have become fixed and traditional. This is not to say that everything that has become "merely conventional" is evil. It is to suggest how, even in civilized society, groups may fall into modes of action that are practiced simply because they have been practiced, rather than from any reasoned consideration that they should be. An illustration may be taken from the experience of civilians drawn into the military routine during the Great War. Men engaged in war work at Washington in civilian capacities reported repeatedly their impatience at the "red tape" of tradition with which certain classes of business were conducted by the military establishment. In law also, progressive practitioners and students have pointed out the well-known fact of the immense and beclogging ritual which has come to surround legal procedure. It is the contention of critics of one or another of our contemporary social habits and institutions that traditionalism, the persistence of custom simply because it is custom, is responsible for many of the anachronisms in our social, political, and industrial life. Space does not permit here a detailed consideration of this question, but it must be noted that social habits, when they are acquired, as they are, unreflectively by the vast majority of people, will tend to be repeated and supported, apart from any consideration of their consequences. This tendency toward social inertia, earlier noted in connection with habit, can only be checked by reflective criticism and appraisement of our current accustomed ways of action.[1]

[Footnote 1: See chapter on "Cultural Continuity."]

In the case of the group, too complete a domination by custom is dangerous in that it sanctions and promotes the continuance of habits that have become useless or harmful. In the case of the individual, the determination of action by custom alone has its specific dangers and defects. Even though the individual happens to conform to useful customs, his conformity is purely mechanical. It involves no intelligent discrimination. Merely to conform places one at the disposition of the environment in which one chances to be. There is not necessary any intelligent analysis on the part of the agent, of the bearings and consequences of his actions. He takes on with fatal facility the color of his environment. To all men, however critical and reflective, a certain degree of conformity to custom is both necessary and useful. There must, in any social enterprise, be some common basis of action. Because taking the right-hand side of the road is a convention, it is none the less a useful one. But reflective acquiescence in a custom differs from merely mechanical conformity. It transforms a custom from a blind mechanism into a consciously chosen instrument for achieving good.

The trivial and the important in a morality based upon custom receive the same unconsidered support. "Tithing mint, anise, and cummin are quite likely to involve the neglect of weightier matters of the law." Physical, emotional, and moral energies that should be devoted to matters genuinely affecting human welfare are lavished upon the trivial and the incidental. We may come to be concerned more with manners than with morals; with ritual, than with right. Customary morality tends to emphasize, moreover, the letter rather than the spirit of the law. It implies complete and punctilious obedience, meticulous conformity. It emphasizes form rather than content. Since conformity is the only criterion, the appearance of conformity is all that is required. The individual may fear to dissent openly rather than actually. This is seen frequently in the ritualistic performance or fulfillment of a duty in all its external details, rather than the actual and positive performance of its content. It is just such Pharisaism that is protested against in the Sermon on the Mount:

And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are; for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward....

But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do; for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

Formalism in morality has periodically roused protest from the Prophets down, and formalism is the result of an unconsidered mechanical acquiescence in custom, or deliberate insistence on traditional details when the spirit and motive are forgotten.

CUSTOM AND PROGRESS. Emphasis upon customs as already established tends to promote fixity and repetition, and to discourage change regardless of the benefits to be derived from specific changes. Custom is supported by the group merely because it is custom; and the ineffective modes of life are maintained along with those which are more useful. Progress comes about through individual variation, and conformity and individual variation are frequently in diametrical collision. It is only when, in Bagehot's phrase, "the cake of custom" is broken, that changes making for good have a possibility of introduction and support. Where the only moral sanctions are the sanctions of custom, change of whatever sort is at a discount. For change implies deviation from the ways of life sanctioned by the group, and deviation is itself, in a custom-bound morality, regarded with suspicion.

It is clear that complete conformity is impossible save in a society of automata. There will be some individuals who will not be able to curb their desires to fit the inhibitions fixed by the group; there will be some who will deliberately stand out against the group commands and prohibitions, and assert their own imperious impulses against their fellows. Where such men are powerful or persuasive they may indeed bring about a transvaluation of all values; they may create a new morality. There are geniuses of the moral as well as the intellectual life, whose sudden insight becomes a standard for succeeding generations.

There may, again, be more infringement of the moral code than is overtly noticeable. Frequently, as in a Puritanical regime, there may be, along with fanatic public professions and practice of virtue, private violation of the conventional moral codes. Our civilization is unpleasantly decorated with countless examples of this discrepancy between professed and practiced codes. The desire for praise and the fear of blame and its consequences, the desire, as we say, for the "good-will" and "respect of others," will lead to all the public manifestations of virtue, "with a private vice or two to appease the wayward flesh." The utterance of conventional moral formulas by men in public, and the infringement of those high doctrines in private, needs unfortunately not to be illustrated. Moliere drew Tartuffe from real life.

ORIGIN AND NATURE OF REFLECTIVE MORALITY. If the customs current were adequate to adjust men to their environment, reflection upon them might never arise. Reflection does arise precisely because customs are not, or do not remain, adequate. An individual is brought up to believe that certain actions are good, and that their performance promotes human happiness. He discovers, by an alert and unclouded insight, that in specific cases the virtues highly regarded by his group do not bring the felicitous results which they are commonly and proverbially held to produce. He observes, let us say, that meekness, humility, honesty are not modes of adaptation that bring happy results. He observes, as Job observed, that the wicked prosper; he notes that those who follow the path called righteous bring unhappiness to themselves and to others.

Or the individual's first reflection upon moral standards may arise in his discovery that moral standards are not absolute, that what is virtue in the Occident is vice in the Orient, and vice versa. He discovers that those actions which he regards as virtuous are so regarded by him simply because he has been trained to their acceptance. Given another environment, his moral revulsions and approvals might be diametrically reversed. He makes the discovery that Protagoras made two thousand years ago: "Man is the measure of all things"; standards of good and evil depend on the accidents of time, space, and circumstance. In such a discovery an individual may well query, What is the good? Not what passes for good, but what is the essence of goodness? What is justice? Not what is accredited justice in the courts of law, or in the market-place, or in the easy generalizations of common opinion. But what constitutes justice essentially? What is the standard by which actions may be rated just and unjust?

Where individuals are habituated to one single tradition or set of customs, such questions may not arise. But where one, through personal experience or acquaintance with history and literature, discovers the multiplicity of standards which have been current with regard to the just and the good in human conduct, the search for some reasonable standard arises. The great historical instance of the discovery of the relativity and irrationality of customary morality and the emergence of reflective standards of moral value is the Athenian period of Greek philosophy. The Sophists pointed out with merciless perspicuity the welter, the confusion, the essential irrationality of current social and religious traditions and beliefs. They went no further in moral analysis than destructive criticism. They pointed out the want of authenticity or reason in the traditional morality by which men lived. Socrates went a step further. If current customs are not authoritative, he said, let us find those that have and ought to have enduring authority over men. If the traditional standards are proved to be futile and inefficacious, let us find the unfaltering standards authenticated by reason. Let us substitute relevant and adequate codes and creeds for those which have by reason been shown to be unreasonable. Beneath the multiplicity of contradictory and often vicious customs, reason must be able to discover ways of life, which, if followed, will lead men to eventual happiness.

There are thus two stages in the process of reflection upon morals. In the first stage reflection does no more than to point out the essential discrepancies and absurdities of the current moral codes. Reflection upon morals begins by being critical and querying. It starts when an individual, a little more thoughtful and perspicacious than his fellows, notes the discrepancies between the customs of different men, and notes also the discrepancies between the threatened results of the violation of traditional codes and the actual results. He may then come to the cynic's conclusion that morality is a myth and a delusion, and, in the words of the Sophist in Plato's Republic, "justice is merely the right of the stronger." Men in whom reflection or social sympathy extends not very far may, as they frequently do, stop at this point. These are the worldly wise; they are interested not in goodness, truth, and justice, but in those effective representations of those things publicly accounted good, true, and just which will win them public approval and increase their own wealth or power and position. Plato, in the Republic, pictures the type with magnificent irony: