The degree of vision that dwells in a man is the correct measure of a man.
Thomas Carlyle.
When general observations are drawn from so many particulars as to become certain and indubitable, these are the jewels of knowledge.
Dr. I. Watts.
To behold is not necessarily to observe, and the power of comparing and combining is only to be obtained by education. It is much to be regretted that habits of exact observation are not cultivated in our schools; to this deficiency may be traced much of the fallacious reasoning, the false philosophy which prevails.
Humboldt.
You should not only have attention to everything, but quickness of attention, so as to observe at once all the people in the room, their motions, their looks, and their words, yet without staring at them or seeming to be an observer. This quick and unobserved observation is of infinite advantage in life, and is to be acquired with care; and, on the contrary, what is called absence, which is a thoughtlessness and want of attention about what is doing, makes a man so like either a fool or a madman, that, for my part, I see no real difference. A fool never has thought, a madman has lost it, and an absent man is for the time without it.
Lord Chesterfield.
X
OBSERVATION AND THINKING
Inventors.
Very few thinkers have let us into the secret of their thinking. Probably most of them could not if they would. They are too much absorbed in that which engrosses their attention to pay any heed to the processes of the inner life. Occasionally an inventor or discoverer gives us a glimpse of the state of his mind when the new idea flashed into consciousness. Such glimpse always reveals his indebtedness to habits of careful observation. His thinking was stimulated by some felt want or puzzling phenomenon, and perhaps by contact with others engaged in similar lines of study. Oftentimes a number of persons are thinking of ways, means, and contrivances by which a widely felt want may be supplied or a perplexing fact explained. After prolonged effort and meditation, during which the mind is concentrated upon one thing to the neglect of everything else having no bearing upon the problem in hand, the happy thought is suggested by the observation of some neglected fact or the perception of some unsuspected relation. Probably half the inventions are made in that way. What seems accidental or a piece of good luck is in reality the result of long musing and reflection, during which many comparisons are made, until at length the right combination gives the desired result. Wants keenly felt by mankind in general or by some gifted individual in particular serve as a powerful stimulus to thought, and quicken the eye and the ear to perceive what was before unnoticed, thereby laying the foundation for invention, discovery, or progress in new fields of thought.
Writers.
Great writers are equally indebted to their powers of observation. Of the men of genius whom the world delights to honor, probably no one watched his inner development more closely than Goethe. He gives us the following account of how his works were produced:
Goethe.
“To each one of my writings a thousand persons, a thousand things have contributed. The learned and the ignorant, the wise and the foolish, childhood and age have all a share therein. They all, without suspecting it, have brought me the gifts of their faculties, their thought and experience. Often they have sown, and I have reaped. My works are a combination of elements which have been taken from all nature and which bear the name—Goethe.”
Human nature.
Human nature furnishes as much room for observation as all the rest of nature. The hopes and fears, the joys and sorrows, the trials and struggles, the thoughts and beliefs, the aspirations and achievements, the motives and deeds of the men and women whom we meet in our daily life and on the pages of history and fiction (such as is true to life) offer a field for observation as vast, as interesting, and as important as all the rocks and soils, the bugs and beetles, the insects, birds, beasts, and fishes that dwell beneath or above or on the surface of the earth. The larger proportion of the books taken from free libraries are works of fiction,—a fact which shows that the interest of most of those who read is centred upon the things of the human heart and in the observation of human life.
Goethe’s views of originality are these:
Originality.
“We are always talking about originality, but what do we mean? As soon as we are born the world begins to work upon us, and this goes on to the end. After all, what can we call our own except our energy, strength, and will? If I could give an account of all that I owe to great predecessors and contemporaries, there would be little left of my own.”
Observation.
Observation lies at the basis of the thinking which leads to invention in the arts, to discovery in the domain of science, to productivity in the fields of literature, journalism, and oratory. It lies at the foundation of success in the professions and in the ordinary walks of life. The medical school, for instance, seeks to develop the power of noting facts and making careful observations. It encourages the student to put his observations on paper while the patient is before him, to compare the diseased or injured part with the corresponding healthy part, and to watch symptoms as a basis for a correct diagnosis of the case to be treated.
Books.
Daily life.
The use of the encyclopÆdia, if pursued without any attempt to verify its statements, may destroy the habits of observation which are so essential to correct thinking. Mere reliance on books cannot beget trustworthy habits of thought, for books contain the errors, as well as the wisdom, of the ages. Errors of judgment may be corrected by thinking; errors of fact must be corrected by observation. Many a book is made useless by new observations and discoveries. “Send to the cellar as useless every book on surgery that is eight years old,” said the professor to the librarian of a great university. The order is an indication of the rapid advances which science is making under the influence of observation, experiment, hypothesis, and verification. Observation is needed not merely to extend our scientific knowledge, but far more imperatively to acquaint us with our environment. We cannot learn from books the multitudinous details of business, or of our daily life. Books cannot make us acquainted with the circle of friends in which we move, the pupils whom we teach, the things in dress, toilet, and behavior upon which our standing and reputation very largely depend. No thinker has a right to neglect these. Many a famous professor has diminished his usefulness by carelessness in the observation of such details. The worst failures in the class-room are due to failure in observing either the difficulties or the conduct of the pupils. If conduct is to be regulated, it must be observed; if difficulties are to be explained, the teacher must perceive when and where they occur.
Men noted for their absent-mindedness nevertheless owe much of their fame and success to their ability to make accurate observations in favorite lines of study. Notwithstanding the many ludicrous tales about Newton’s failure to see ordinary conditions and circumstances, he showed himself indefatigable in watching the effect of a glass prism upon the ray of light admitted into a dark room. The falling of an apple started in his mind a train of thought which led to the discovery of the law of gravitation.
Experiment.
Daguerre.
Our best thinking is based upon experience, and our two main sources of experience are observation and experiment. How does experiment differ from simple observation? In the latter we watch conditions, phenomena, and sequences as they follow one another in the ordinary course of nature. In an experiment we change or control the course of nature by varying the conditions and causes for the sake of seeing the effects produced. In experiment the relation of causes and effects is studied by adding or excluding one factor after another. Take the discovery which made Daguerre famous. Up to his time men had tried in vain to fix the impression of the image formed in the camera obscura. No alchemist ever went to work at a more unpromising task than the one Daguerre set before himself. “As years rolled on, the passion only took deeper hold upon him. In spite of utter failures and discouragement of all kinds, for years in loneliness and secrecy, suspected of mental weakness even by his wife, he kept on in the same line of experiment.” Finally an accident gave him a clue to discovery. The plates with which he experimented were stowed away in a rubbish closet. One day he found, to his surprise, upon one of these plates the very image which had fallen upon it in the camera. Something in the closet must have produced the effect. He removed one thing after another, getting the same effect, until nothing remained except some mercury which had been spilled upon the closet floor. This was inferred to be the agent which developed the image, and thus was laid the foundation of the modern art of photography.[20]
Accidental observations.
The observation of a fact often stimulates thought in new directions. In fact, new sciences have arisen from accidental observations. “Erasmus Bartholinus thus first discovered double refraction in Iceland spar; Galvini noticed the twitching of a frog’s leg; Oken was struck by the form of a vertebra; Malus accidentally examined light reflected from a distant window with a double refracting substance; and Sir John Herschel’s attention was drawn to the peculiar appearance of a solution of quinine sulphate. In earlier times there must have been some one who first noticed the strange behavior of a loadstone, or the unaccountable motions produced by amber. As a general rule we shall not know in what direction to look for a great body of phenomena widely different from those familiar to us. Chance, then, must give us the starting-point; but one accidental observation well used may lead us to make thousands of observations in an intentional and organized manner, and thus a science may be gradually worked from the smallest opening.”[21]
Factories.
In recent years experimental research has become a regular occupation in connection with large manufacturing establishments. In some factories along the Rhine upward of sixty men are employed in chemical experiments for the purpose of finding what use can be made of waste products. In this way over two hundred useful products from petroleum have been discovered, and a large increase in profits has been the result. The great electrical works spend time and money upon experiments, and jealously censor every article written by their employees for scientific journals lest their valuable secrets should be given away. A company engaged in the manufacture of cash registers offers a yearly premium for the most helpful suggestion from the men and women in its employ. In one year the firm received over eleven hundred suggestions, of which at least eight hundred were utilized in improvements of various kinds.
Universities.
Where observation is needed.
The weather.
These instances are only samples of many that could be cited to show how systematic observation and experiment lend a helping hand to our national prosperity. Manufacturers carry them on for the sake of gain, the universities for the sake of widening the field of knowledge. To aid in such research large endowments have been established, and many of the common people willingly pay tax in support of State universities. Treatises on inductive logic and on the physical sciences have been prepared by Herschel, J. S. Mill, Jevons, and others for the purpose of showing the correct methods of research by the use of instruments of precision, of standards of measurement, and of other apparatus; for the laws of thought must be obeyed in the interpretation of natural phenomena. Although as a matter of discipline the teacher in our public schools may well study these advanced treatises, yet the habits of observation which the elementary school should aim to beget and to foster are simpler in detail, more easily acquired, and, it may be added, of inestimable value in the subsequent life of the pupils. Habits of observation are needed not only by authors, inventors, and scientists, but also by all other people for the interpretation of the books they may read and for the discharge of the daily duties devolving upon them. The engineer, the fireman, the conductor, the tradesman, the mechanic, the detective, the scout, the warrior, must be able to see things as they are or face partial failure. Too many of them have eyes and see not; they have ears and hear not. The study of nature is valuable as a preparation for life either in the country or in the city. Our rural population have not learned to see and appreciate the marvels in nature which are transpiring on every side. The way in which the almanac is consulted for signs to guide in sowing and planting, for prognostications of the weather, show how little the average man can make observations. The printers have found it necessary to retain these absolutely unreliable weather predictions in their almanacs; the attempted omission has been an experiment involving the loss of thousands of dollars. The success of the quack is largely due to limited observation. One cure is made much of while multitudes of failures are always forgotten.
Country and city.
Our rural population would be far more contented if the boys and girls were taught at school how to observe and appreciate their surroundings. They have many advantages over city folks which they never realize as sources of enjoyment. The senses themselves, which have been styled the gate-ways of knowledge, may be improved by judicious exercise; and the power of the mind to interpret sense-impressions may be developed to a marvellous degree. The savages of our North American forests had developed keen eyes and ears; the more civilized backwoodsmen were soon more than a match for the wily Indian. To-day, when the latter watches the trained sharp-shooters hitting with unerring accuracy a mark more than half a mile distant, he shakes his head and walks away in silence.
The child.
It has been asserted that a child gains more knowledge in the first seven years of its life than in all its subsequent days. If the domain of abstract and scientific knowledge be excluded from the comparison, this is probably true. At any rate, if the thinking which is based upon the knowledge of facts thus gained is to be correct, the facts must be correctly observed.
Observation a source of thought-material.
Observation is thus of prime importance, not merely as furnishing a stimulus to thought, but also as supplying abundant materials of thought. Travel, experience, experiment, as well as the ordinary course of natural phenomena, furnish abundant opportunity for the formation of correct habits of observation. The observations thus made should be recorded in the memory, if not on manuscript. From the storehouse of the memory, thus filled with materials for thought, the mind derives many of the best data for reaching conclusions. Observation, experience, and reading, as sources of thought-material, presuppose an accurate and retentive memory in those who think well and act well. The relation of memory to thinking deserves treatment in a separate chapter.
Nature-study.
There is a limit to the number of observations which the mind can carry and use. Nature-study may be overdone. Mere seeing is not thinking. What the eye beholds must be sorted and assigned to its appropriate class; otherwise the treasure-house of memory will soon resemble a wilderness of meaningless facts. Than this only one thing can be worse,—namely, a wilderness of meaningless words.
Reading and observation.
Teaching a child to read.
First test.
Second test.
Reading is a species of observation. An exercise in oral reading, during which each pupil is called down as soon as he miscalls a word, is often an astonishing revelation, showing how few of the advanced pupils can accurately see and correctly name every word in a stanza or paragraph. Methods of teaching a beginner to read are correct in seeking to develop the ability to pronounce words without help from others. Faulty application of a method that is right in this respect may seriously retard, and even destroy, the power of thinking what is on the printed page. What on earth is a first-year pupil to do with the many hundred words which he is sometimes taught to pronounce? Often words are arranged in sentences which come dangerously near the slang of the slums, and which no child ever hears in a cultured home. Furthermore, some sentences in primers and first readers are well-nigh void of meaning, the aim being to teach the words for the sake of the combinations of letters which they contain. The first test to apply to a method of teaching a beginner to read is the question, How quickly does it teach that which must be known as a condition of pronouncing new words,—namely, the shape and the sound or sounds of each of the letters of the alphabet? As compared with the sound and the shape, the name of the letter is of relatively little importance. Students of Hebrew may read that language fluently without being able to repeat the Hebrew alphabet, the names of the letters being a mere matter of convenience in talking about them. The second great test to be applied to the method of teaching a beginner to read is the question, Does it form the habit of getting thought from the printed page? Grown men have admitted that they passed through several readers before they discovered that there was a meaning or connected story in the words which they were pronouncing. They saw and gave names to words very much as people see and give names to objects round about them without recognizing the significance of what is seen, or thinking the thoughts which the Author of the Universe has spread out before them in the great book of nature.
Third test.
The third test to be applied to the method of teaching reading is the question, Does it save the pupil from the unnatural tones of the school-room by training him to use his voice in the right way? To this test reference will be made later.
Observation should lead to thinking.
If observation is to have abiding value, it must lead to thinking. This is as true of the observation of words and sentences on the printed or written page as it is of the observation of earth and sky and sea, of the starry heavens above and the moral law within (which filled the soul of the philosopher Kant with never-ceasing awe). How the things obtained from books and from the world outside are appropriated in thought and made our own will appear more fully when we discuss the relation of memory to thinking.
