The other reason why the relations of the extracted characters are so
evident is that their properties are so _few_, compared with the
properties of the whole, from which we derived them. In every concrete
fact the characters and their consequences are so inexhaustibly numerous
that we may lose our way among them before noticing the particular
consequence it behooves us to draw. But, if we are lucky enough to
single out the proper character, we take in, as it were, by a single
glance all its possible consequences. Thus the character of scraping
the sill has very few suggestions, prominent among which is the
suggestion that the scraping will cease if we raise the door; whilst the
entire refractory door suggests an enormous number of notions to the
mind. Such examples may seem trivial, but they contain the essence of
the most refined and transcendental theorizing. The reason why physics
grows more deductive the more the fundamental properties it assumes are
of a mathematical sort, such as molecular mass or wave-length, is that
the immediate consequences of these notions are so few that we can
survey them all at once, and promptly pick out those which concern us.
=Sagacity.=--To reason, then, we must be able to extract characters,--not
_any_ characters, but the right characters for our conclusion. If we
extract the wrong character, it will not lead to that conclusion. Here,
then, is the difficulty: _How are characters extracted, and why does it
require the advent of a genius in many cases before the fitting
character is brought to light?_ Why cannot anybody reason as well as
anybody else? Why does it need a Newton to notice the law of the
squares, a Darwin to notice the survival of the fittest? To answer these
questions we must begin a new research, and see how our insight into
facts naturally grows.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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