Thinking and learning to think by Nathan C. Schaeffer (ebooks that read to you .txt) 📖
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The same remarks apply to life on the farm. The incessant drudgery of monotonous toil day after day from early dawn till late at night has sent farmers and their wives to untimely graves, sometimes to the insane asylum. They need the intellectual stimulus which comes from good books, the health-giving recreation which comes with the change from the fatiguing toil of the day to the perusal of good literature in the evening. Under the more rational policy of providing a supply of good books along with the creation of a taste for reading, the working people of the next generation will be as well read, as well informed, and as capable of sustained thought as those who think money all day, or spend their strength in vocations which act upon the mind very much as a grindstone acts upon a knife,—narrowing the blade while sharpening the edge. Let it be hoped that early in the twentieth century the laboring classes will have shorter hours of work, more leisure for reading, and an appreciation of good books equal to that of Charles Lamb, who asserted that there was more reason for saying grace before a new book than before a dinner. Under the beneficent influence of free text-books and free libraries it should be possible to create in the rising generation a spirit like that of Macaulay, who declared that if any one should offer to make him the greatest king that ever lived, with palaces and gardens, and fine dinners and wines, and coaches and beautiful clothes, and hundreds of servants, on condition that he should not read books, he would decline the offer, preferring to be a poor man in a garret with plenty of books rather than a king who did not love reading.
XOBSERVATION AND THINKING
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.
XOBSERVATION AND THINKING
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.
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:
“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 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:
“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 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.
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.
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
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