instances had given body to a generalization, reflexion would reduce the vague conception at first framed to a more definite conception; and perhaps difficulties or anomalies passed over for a while, but eventually forcing themselves on attention, might cause a needful qualification and a truer shaping of the thought. Eventually the growing generalization, thus far inductive, might take a deductive form: being all at once recognized as a necessary consequence of some physical principle—some established law. And thus, little by little, in unobtrusive ways, without conscious intention or appreciable effort, there would grow up a coherent and organized theory. Habitually the process was one of slow unforced development, often extending over years; and the thinking done went on in this gradual, almost spontaneous way, without strain. . . .”[6] But compare this method with that of John Stuart Mill; who speaks of “the mental habit to which I attribute all that I have ever done, or ever shall do, in speculation; that of never abandoning a puzzle, but again and again returning to it until it was cleared up; never allowing obscure corners of a subject to remain unexplored because they did not appear important; never thinking that I perfectly understood any part of a subject until I understood the whole.”[7] Mill’s method was, in short, “that of conscious and vehement effort directed towards the end he had in view. He solved his problems by laborious application and study.”[8] William Minto writes of Adam Smith: “His intellectual proceedings were calm, patient, and regular: he mastered a subject slowly and circumspectly, and carried his principles with steady tenacity through multitudes of details that would have checked many men of greater mental vigor unendowed with the same invincible persistence.” With such thinkers differing so markedly in their methods, the ordinary man is left bewildered. He may indeed decide that effort or no effort makes little difference. Let us, however, look to the psychology of the question, and see whether we can find any guiding principle.