George Hastings McNair

“ After the investigator has his facts to build upon; and these may be few or many—sometimes even a single fact is sufficient—then may he theorize as to a possible explanation of them. Here is where the real work of the born genius tells. To some the facts are nothing but words, to others they mean universal laws and great inventions. Who but a Newton could have seen the law of gravitation in the falling apple? Who but an Edison could have seen the phonograph in the sound wave and wax? ”

“ Logic worships at the shrine of truth and adds to our store of knowledge. What has aided the world more in its march onward than this deep-seated passion for truth and what has impeded it more than that vain and wanton indifference to truth which brought to the world its darkest age? ”

“ The fallacy is not committed when the assertion is self-evident. It is easy to claim that our opponent is begging the question as soon as we see that he is getting the better of us. One may himself beg the question by being too ready to charge others with begging the question. When the opponent adopts premises which are commonly accepted, he does not beg the question. One commits the fallacy when he seems to prove the conclusion more satisfactorily than he really does. This he may accomplish by covertly taking for granted the truth of notions which have not the stamp of universal approval. ”

“ The child who has a general notion of man sees for the first time a negro. If he recognizes the negro as a colored man he must conjoin his general notion of man with this individual notion. In short, a concept is built by means of a series of judgments. It may be said further that an inference is simply a made-over judgment. It is thus evident that judging appears in both the thought processes of conception and inference and, therefore, as a final conclusion it may be affirmed that judging, though perhaps not the simplest form of thinking, is the basic element of developed thought. ”

“ Whenever we trust to luck, we do so through ignorance. In reality every thing in this world is ordered according to law, and if we possessed infinite knowledge concerning these laws, then, for us, the word “chance” would have no meaning. One accomplishment of knowledge has been to rationalize superstition and chance. “Not a grain of sand lies upon the beach, but infinite knowledge would account for its lying there; and the cause of every falling leaf is guided by the same principles of mechanics as rule the motions of the heavenly bodies.”—Jevon’s Prin. of Science, vol. ”

“ By means of these, science has advanced step by step towards the full light of perfect knowledge. As has been remarked, no true scientist cares to overlook the opportunity for suggestive inspiration which some forsaken hypothesis may afford him. Just as the individual attains the best success by using his failures as stepping stones, so the true scientific discoverer climbs up to the light on the stairway of discarded hypotheses. By testing and rejecting the false hypotheses, the situation becomes more definite and the problem more accurately defined. ”

“ It may be advanced as a plausible hypothesis that man, especially if he is an American, finds much trouble for himself, and makes much trouble for the world because of his indifference to thought. To leap first and look afterwards is the spirit of youth, and America is young. Think twice before you look and look twice before you leap is sound logical doctrine. A logically minded man rationalizes every new proposition before he adopts it. ”

“ Thus it is manifest that an affirmative conclusion like, “All Americans are immortal,” is invalid.
The converse of rule 6, “To prove a negative conclusion, one of the premises must be negative,” may be explained by the general principle in logic that when two terms are known to disagree, one must agree with a third term while the other must disagree. If both agreed with a third, then the conclusion would of necessity be affirmative. If both disagreed no conclusion could be drawn. A violation of rule 6 may be called the fallacy of negative conclusion. ”

“ In observation we watch for causes; in experiment we work for effects. We may thus define experiment as the act of making phenomena occur for the purpose of watching for effects. In experiment there is much which is merely observation. In fact experiment is observation in which the phenomenon is artificially produced. For the sake of definiteness, however, any observation which involves a manipulation of circumstances, may be designated as experimental. ”

“ But there is another reason for this ultra conservative spirit and it is that nature’s chief mode of instruction is by means of imitation. To every living thing of wood or field nature seems to say, “Your parents are always right, do as they do for this is the best way to learn the lessons of life.” A man thinks, feels and wills his way through life in a certain manner largely because his father did likewise. Moreover, we not only imitate those who have gone on before, but we counterfeit each other; fashion is another name for world wide mimicry. ”

“ Applying the law of identity to the affirmative judgment expressed in the form of a proposition, we find two kinds of identity, absolute and relative. In the propositions, “Socrates is Socrates,” “dogs are dogs,” “honesty is honesty,” the subject is absolutely identical with the predicate—the same in form and meaning. ”

“ As the definition implies, analogy involves an extensive use of types; let us, therefore, become better acquainted with them as instruments in analogical inductions. A type is one of a group which embodies the essential characteristics of that group. How easy and natural it is to dismiss a complex topic with the citing of an example which may be regarded as a type; how common is the use of examples in the school room! On second thought it becomes apparent that analogical induction by example or type is the most common of all forms of induction either as a method or a mode of inference. ”

“ To follow the “same old rut” is easiest for the teacher; to be loyal to the “grand old party” is safest for the politician. But to the contrary, if every man of every generation had followed the beaten path blindly—without deviation, the human race would now be a horde of simians. Because man has possessed the power of progressive thought, he has developed the spirit of radicalism and has thereby made himself supreme. ”

“ Greater attention must be given to the spirit of discovery and less to the spirit of correction. The teacher must lead less and follow more; must correct less and suggest more; must tell less and direct more. If we are to give greater attention to the training of discoverers, logic may aid in this crusade by calling attention to the common mode of procedure which the discoverers of the past have adopted. This is a legitimate topic for the logician, since induction, deduction, hypothesis, and proof have ever been common tools in the discoverer’s workshop. ”

“ The main difficulty attending the use of the method of difference is the complexity of phenomenon. The very nature of the method insists as an essential requirement that only one material antecedent shall be varied at a time. In life the variations are more or less confused, and it is often not only impossible to observe cases of a single variation, but frequently error comes through overlooking antecedents which are material to the case under investigation. For these reasons the Method of Difference is more a method of experiment than it is a method of observation. ”

“ There is too much form without the spirit; so much that bespeaks system and refinement without those native impulses and native abilities which mark one child from another. Like the books of a library our children are classified and labeled, and when more come in the others are dusted and placed on the next higher shelf. ”

“ LOGIC DEFINED.
“Logic is the science of thought.” This definition commonly given is too brief to be helpful. Should not a definition of any subject represent a working basis upon which one may build with some knowledge of what the structure is to be? The following, a little out of the ordinary, seems to supply this condition: Logic as a science makes known the laws and forms of thought and as an art suggests conditions which must be fulfilled to think rightly. ”

“ Induction is the natural method of the discoverer. With it he acquires knowledge; but in the class room induction is used to impart knowledge. In life the discoverer takes the initiative, thinks his own thoughts first hand; but in the school room, above the kindergarten, the child is not allowed to take the initiative, not even in his play. All is planned for him, all doled out, not in the raw, but partially made over. The teacher must impart a certain amount of knowledge in a given time, and consequently she must “set the pace” in this race for second hand facts. ”

“ Induction as a general process may be treated as a mode of inference or as a method. In either case the conclusion comprehends more than is contained in the premises.
Since no imperfect induction is absolutely free from doubt, on what ground are we justified in making any inductive assumptions? The answer follows:
(7 and 8) “Nothing can occur without a cause and every cause has its effect,” is the law of universal causation; while the law of the uniformity of nature is “the same antecedents are universally followed by the same consequents.” ”

“ If there is one thing above another which modern logic is emphasizing it is the unity of the mind and the contiguity of thinking. Induction and deduction are dove-tailed processes which characterize all thinking worthy of the name. Where induction ceases, deduction commences, and vice versa. It becomes the function of inductive thinking to establish a connection between what has been experienced and what has not been experienced. Therefore, the conclusion of an induction must always contain more than is implied in the premises. ”

“ On the other hand there are those who maintain that the sensation and percept are mere reflections of consciousness; the sensation being a reflected quality and the percept a reflected object. These mental situations come into being instantly—there is no time for thought and we all know that thought requires time. (“As quick as thought” is misleading, since light travels more rapidly by many times than the agencies of thought.)
It will probably never be settled to the satisfaction of all just when thinking commences. The question is as difficult as some others which have never been solved. ”

“ Partitive Propositions.
Partitive propositions are particulars which imply a complementary opposite. These arise through the ambiguous use of all-not, some and few. All-not may sometimes be interpreted as not all and sometimes as no. To illustrate: The proposition, “All men are not mortal,” is distinctly a universal negative or an E, while the proposition, “All that glitters is not gold,” is a particular negative or an O. The logical form of the first is, “No men are mortal,” and of the second, “Some glittering things are not gold.” ”

“ Any force which tends to lift the world up toward more light is a blessing, and any personality which contributes to this end is a success. When one drops a pin it falls down toward the earth, at the same time the earth comes up to meet the pin. This is according to the universal law of gravitation. It is true that the earth moves the pin through a much greater space than the pin moves the earth, and yet the fact remains that the pin does move the earth. ”

“ Parent and child, teacher and pupil, shepherd and flock, monarch and subject, eldest and youngest, cause and effect, commander and army, are correlative terms. Either one of each pair is the correlate to the other, and every relative term needs its correlate to make its meaning clear. To say that a relative term denotes an object which cannot be thought of without reference to some other object, is confusing, as it is quite impossible to think of any object without calling to mind some other object or notion. ”

“ In observation we simply watch the phenomenon; in experiment we make it. In experiment we not only observe, but we manipulate the circumstances so as to present the phenomenon under the most favorable conditions for observation. ”

“ A logical fallacy is any error in reasoning which has the appearance of correctness.
A fallacy which deceives the writer or speaker himself is termed a paralogism, whereas a fallacy formed for the express purpose of deceiving another is denominated a sophism.
It was the pagan teacher Socrates who taught modern thought to frown upon all forms of sophism; these exist to-day much as they did in the olden time.
(3) Because of disagreement as to definition, and because of inability to prevent an overlapping of species, any logical division of the deductive fallacies must be faulty. ”

“ Only the higher orders of animal life think. Some argue that the power is confined exclusively to the human family. This opinion is debatable. If the claimant means by thinking, reasoning then his ground is well taken. But if he is willing to give to thinking a broader content, then he has little defense for his stand. However, attach as broad a meaning to thinking as the derivation of the word will permit and even then it is a narrower term than knowing. Thinking plus intuition equals knowing, and in intuition there is probably no thinking. ”

“ Knowledge stands for everything known, the notion, for everything noted. The Egyptians may have possessed much knowledge of which we may never become aware. Much of their knowledge may never become notions of the American people. A notion is an existing state of consciousness. Said notion may be committed to paper, and then it may give way to another notion. It now ceases to be your notion, but remains on the printed page, as a bit of knowledge.
“Idea,” because of its ambiguity, really has no place in logic. The term is frequently restricted to a reproduced percept. ”

“ In his scheme of education, man’s watchword is knowledge, while nature’s is conquest. To seek knowledge without inspiring the spirit of conquest is man’s way; whereas nature’s way is to encourage the spirit of conquest by using knowledge as a reward. Man must co-operate with nature, if the best results are to be secured.
(9) In the case of the true discoverer, it is not necessary to endow the object of his thought with added attractiveness; but with the child enthusiasm may need to be stimulated by “motivating” the subject in hand. ”

“ Because the conclusion of a perfect induction gives nothing new—nothing but what is found in the premises, some claim that the process is practically valueless. From the viewpoint of the discoverer this position is well taken; yet to universalize particular observations puts the knowledge in compact, usable form, and saves one the trouble of returning each time to the consideration of each particular. Thus as a process which leads to verified universals, perfect induction is a time saver. ”