John Stuart Mill, in an essay on Jeremy Bentham, pointed out that the secret of the latter’s strength and originality of thought lay in his method, which “may be shortly described as the method of detail; of treating wholes by separating them into their parts, abstractions by resolving them into things,—classes and generalities by distinguishing them into the individuals of which they are made up; and breaking every question into pieces before attempting to solve it.” The method was not absolutely original with Bentham, but “whatever originality there was in the method, in the subjects he applied it to, and in the rigidity with which he adhered to it, there was the greatest.” The systematic thinker is careful of the manner in which he marshals his difficulties. He knows that certain problems should properly be considered before certain others, and he saves himself labor and sometimes error by considering them in that order. Before asking himself how Government should cure a given social evil, he first asks whether it is the duty or even the right of the State to attend to that particular evil at all. In other words, before asking what the State should do in any particular case, he considers first what the proper sphere of government is. It must be admitted that a previous question often cannot be discovered until one has actually attempted the solution of a problem. In the foregoing instance, it would be difficult to determine the proper sphere of government by any other method than a consideration of particular cases where government interference suggests itself. In fact, it is only by deep reflection on a subject that we come to realize most of the problems involved. You walk along the road with your friend the botanist and he stops to pick what looks to you to be a common wild flower. “Hm,” he muses, “I wonder how that got in this part of the country?” Now that is no problem to you, simply because you do not happen to know why that particular flower should _not_ be there—and what men do not know about they take for granted. Knowledge furnishes problems, and the discovery of problems itself constitutes an intellectual advance. Whenever you are thrashing out a subject, write down every problem, difficulty and objection that occurs to you. When you get what you consider a satisfactory solution, see whether or not it answers all of them.