The Mind and Its Education

G >> George Herbert Betts >> The Mind and Its Education

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HOW JUDGMENTS FUNCTION IN REASONING.--Such a line of thinking is very
common to everyone, and one that we carry out in one form or another a
thousand times every day we live. When we come to look closely at the
steps involved in arriving at a conclusion, we detect a series of
judgments--often not very logically arranged, to be sure, but yet so
related that the result is safely reached in the end. We compare our
concept of, say, the first route and our concept of picturesqueness,
decide they agree, and affirm the judgment, "This route is picturesque."
Likewise we arrive at the judgment, "This route is also expensive, it is
interesting, etc." Then we take the other routes and form our judgments
concerning them. These judgments are all related to each other in some
way, some of them being more intimately related than others. Which
judgments remain as the significant ones, the ones which are used to
solve the problem finally, depends on which concepts are the most vital
for us with reference to the ultimate end in view. If time is the chief
element, then the form of our reasoning would be something like this:
"Two of the routes require more than three days: hence I must take the
third route." If economy is the important end, the solution would be as
follows: "Two routes cost more than $1,000; I cannot afford to pay more
than $800; I therefore must patronize the third route."

In both cases it is evident that the conclusion is reached through a
comparison of two or more judgments. This is the essential difference
between judgment and reasoning. Whereas judgment discovers relations
between concepts, _reasoning discovers relations between judgments, and
from this evolves a new judgment which is the conclusion sought_. The
example given well illustrates the ordinary method by which we reason to
conclusions.

DEDUCTION AND THE SYLLOGISM.--Logic may take the conclusion, with the
two judgments on which it is based, and form the three into what is
called a _syllogism_, of which the following is a classical type:

All men are mortal;
Socrates is a man,
Therefore
Socrates is mortal.

The first judgment is in the form of a proposition which is called the
_major premise_, because it is general in its nature, including all men.
The second is the _minor premise_, since it deals with a particular man.
The third is the _conclusion_, in which a new relation is discovered
between Socrates and mortality.

This form of reasoning is _deductive_, that is, it proceeds from the
general to the particular. Much of our reasoning is an abbreviated form
of the syllogism, and will readily expand into it. For instance, we say,
"It will rain tonight, for there is lightning in the west." Expanded
into the syllogism form it would be, "Lightning in the west is a sure
sign of rain; there is lightning in the west this evening; therefore, it
will rain tonight." While we do not commonly think in complete
syllogisms, it is often convenient to cast our reasoning in this form to
test its validity. For example, a fallacy lurks in the generalization,
"Lightning in the west is a sure sign of rain." Hence the conclusion is
of doubtful validity.

INDUCTION.--Deduction is a valuable form of reasoning, but a moment's
reflection will show that something must precede the syllogism in our
reasoning. The _major premise must be accounted for_. How are we able to
say that all men are mortal, and that lightning in the west is a sure
sign of rain? How was this general truth arrived at? There is only one
way, namely, through the observation of a large number of particular
instances, or through _induction_.

Induction is the method of proceeding from the particular to the
general. Many men are observed, and it is found that all who have been
observed have died under a certain age. It is true that not all men have
been observed to die, since many are now living, and many more will no
doubt come and live in the world whom _we_ cannot observe, since
mortality will have overtaken us before their advent. To this it may be
answered that the men now living have not yet lived up to the limit of
their time, and, besides, they have within them the causes working whose
inevitable effect has always been and always will be death; likewise
with the men yet unborn, they will possess the same organism as we,
whose very nature necessitates mortality. In the case of the
premonitions of rain, the generalization is not so safe, for there have
been exceptions. Lightning in the west at night is not always followed
by rain, nor can we find inherent causes as in the other case which
necessitates rain as an effect.

THE NECESSITY FOR BROAD INDUCTION.--Thus it is seen that our
generalizations, or major premises, are of all degrees of validity. In
the case of some, as the mortality of man, millions of cases have been
observed and no exceptions found, but on the contrary, causes discovered
whose operation renders the result inevitable. In others, as, for
instance, in the generalization once made, "All cloven-footed animals
chew their cud," not only had the examination of individual cases not
been carried so far as in the former case when the generalization was
made, but there were found no inherent causes residing in cloven-footed
animals which make it necessary for them to chew their cud. That is,
cloven feet and cud-chewing do not of necessity go together, and the
case of the pig disproves the generalization.

In practically no instance, however, is it possible for us to examine
every case upon which a generalization is based; after examining a
sufficient number of cases, and particularly if there are supporting
causes, we are warranted in making the "inductive leap," or in
proceeding at once to state our generalization as a working hypothesis.
Of course it is easy to see that if we have a wrong generalization, if
our major premise is invalid, all that follows in our chain of reasoning
will be worthless. This fact should render us careful in making
generalizations on too narrow a basis of induction. We may have observed
that certain red-haired people of our acquaintance are quick-tempered,
but we are not justified from this in making the general statement that
all red-haired people are quick-tempered. Not only have we not examined
a sufficient number of cases to warrant such a conclusion, but we have
found in the red hair not even a cause of quick temper, but only an
occasional concomitant.

THE INTERRELATION OF INDUCTION AND DEDUCTION.--Induction and deduction
must go hand in hand in building up our world of knowledge. Induction
gives us the particular facts out of which our system of knowledge is
built, furnishes us with the data out of which general truths are
formed; deduction allows us to start with the generalization furnished
us by induction, and from this vantage ground to organize and
systematize our knowledge and, through the discovery of its relations,
to unify it and make it usable. Deduction starts with a general truth
and asks the question, "What new relations are made necessary among
particular facts by this truth?" Induction starts with particulars, and
asks the question, "To what general truth do these separate facts lead?"
Each method of reasoning needs the other. Deduction must have induction
to furnish the facts for its premises; induction must have deduction to
organize these separate facts into a unified body of knowledge. "He only
sees well who sees the whole in the parts, and the parts in the whole."

7. PROBLEMS IN OBSERVATION AND INTROSPECTION

1. Watch your own thinking for examples of each of the four types
described. Observe a class of children in a recitation or at study and
try to decide which type is being employed by each child. What
proportion of the time supposedly given to study is given over to
_chance_ or idle thinking? To _assimilative_ thinking? To _deliberative_
thinking?

2. Observe children at work in school with the purpose of determining
whether they are being taught to _think_, or only to memorize certain
facts. Do you find that definitions whose meaning is not clear are often
required of children? Which should come first, the definition or the
meaning and application of it?

3. It is of course evident from the relation of induction and deduction
that the child's natural mode of learning a subject is by induction.
Observe the teaching of children to determine whether inductive methods
are commonly used. Outline an inductive lesson in arithmetic,
physiology, geography, civics, etc.

4. What concepts have you now which you are aware are very meager? What
is your concept of _mountain?_ How many have you seen? Have you any
concepts which you are working very hard to enrich?

5. Recall some judgment which you have made and which proved to be
false, and see whether you can now discover what was wrong with it. Do
you find the trouble to be an inadequate concept? What constitutes "good
judgment"? "poor judgment"? Did you ever make a mistake in an example
in, say, percentage, by saying "This is the base," when it proved not to
be? What was the cause of the error?

6. Can you recall any instance in which you made too hasty a
generalization when you had observed but few cases upon which to base
your premise? What of your reasoning which followed?

7. See whether you can show that validity of reasoning rests ultimately
on correct perceptions. What are you doing at present to increase your
power of thinking?

8. How ought this chapter to help one in making a better teacher? A
better student?

CHAPTER XIII

INSTINCT

Nothing is more wonderful than nature's method of endowing each
individual at the beginning with all the impulses, tendencies and
capacities that are to control and determine the outcome of the life.
The acorn has the perfect oak tree in its heart; the complete butterfly
exists in the grub; and man at his highest powers is present in the babe
at birth. Education _adds_ nothing to what heredity supplies, but only
develops what is present from the first.

We are a part of a great unbroken procession of life, which began at the
beginning and will go on till the end. Each generation receives, through
heredity, the products of the long experience through which the race has
passed. The generation receiving the gift today lives its own brief
life, makes its own little contribution to the sum total and then passes
on as millions have done before. Through heredity, the achievements, the
passions, the fears, and the tragedies of generations long since
moldered to dust stir our blood and tone our nerves for the conflict of
today.

1. THE NATURE OF INSTINCT

Every child born into the world has resting upon him an unseen hand
reaching out from the past, pushing him out to meet his environment, and
guiding him in the start upon his journey. This impelling and guiding
power from the past we call _instinct_. In the words of Mosso: "Instinct
is the voice of past generations reverberating like a distant echo in
the cells of the nervous system. We feel the breath, the advice, the
experience of all men, from those who lived on acorns and struggled like
wild beasts, dying naked in the forests, down to the virtue and toil of
our father, the fear and love of our mother."

THE BABE'S DEPENDENCE ON INSTINCT.--The child is born ignorant and
helpless. It has no memory, no reason, no imagination. It has never
performed a conscious act, and does not know how to begin. It must get
started, but how? It has no experience to direct it, and is unable to
understand or imitate others of its kind. It is at this point that
instinct comes to the rescue. The race has not given the child a mind
ready made--that must develop; but it has given him a ready-made nervous
system, ready to respond with the proper movements when it receives the
touch of its environment through the senses.

And this nervous system has been so trained during a limitless past that
its responses are the ones which are necessary for the welfare of its
owner. It can do a hundred things without having to wait to learn them.
Burdette says of the new-born child, "Nobody told him what to do. Nobody
taught him. He knew. Placed suddenly on the guest list of this old
caravansary, he knew his way at once to two places in it--his bedroom
and the dining-room." A thousand generations of babies had done the same
thing in the same way, and each had made it a little easier for this
particular baby to do his part without learning how.

DEFINITION OF INSTINCT.--_Instincts are the tendency to act in certain
definite ways, without previous education and without a conscious end in
view._ They are a tendency to _act_; for some movement, or motor
adjustment, is the response to an instinct. They do not require previous
_education_, for none is possible with many instinctive acts: the duck
does not have to be taught to swim or the baby to suck. They have no
conscious _end_ in view, though the result may be highly desirable.

Says James: "The cat runs after the mouse, runs or shows fight before
the dog, avoids falling from walls and trees, shuns fire and water,
etc., not because he has any notion either of life or death, or of self,
or of preservation. He has probably attained to no one of these
conceptions in such a way as to react definitely upon it. He acts in
each case separately, and simply because he cannot help it; being so
framed that when that particular running thing called a mouse appears in
his field of vision he _must_ pursue; that when that particular barking
and obstreperous thing called a dog appears he _must_ retire, if at a
distance, and scratch if close by; that he _must_ withdraw his feet from
water and his face from flame, etc. His nervous system is to a great
extent a pre-organized bundle of such reactions. They are as fatal as
sneezing, and exactly correlated to their special excitants as it to its
own."[6]

You ask, Why does the lark rise on the flash of a sunbeam from his
meadow to the morning sky, leaving a trail of melody to mark his flight?
Why does the beaver build his dam, and the oriole hang her nest? Why are
myriads of animal forms on the earth today doing what they were
countless generations ago? Why does the lover seek the maid, and the
mother cherish her young? _Because the voice of the past speaks to the
present, and the present has no choice but to obey._

INSTINCTS ARE RACIAL HABITS.--Instincts are the habits of the race which
it bequeaths to the individual; the individual takes these for his
start, and then modifies them through education, and thus adapts himself
to his environment. Through his instincts, the individual is enabled to
short-cut racial experience, and begin at once on life activities which
the race has been ages in acquiring. Instinct preserves to us what the
race has achieved in experience, and so starts us out where the race
left off.

UNMODIFIED INSTINCT IS BLIND.--Many of the lower animal forms act on
instinct blindly, unable to use past experience to guide their acts,
incapable of education. Some of them carry out seemingly marvelous
activities, yet their acts are as automatic as those of a machine and as
devoid of foresight. A species of mud wasp carefully selects clay of
just the right consistency, finds a somewhat sheltered nook under the
eaves, and builds its nest, leaving one open door. Then it seeks a
certain kind of spider, and having stung it so as to benumb without
killing, carries it into the new-made nest, lays its eggs on the body of
the spider so that the young wasps may have food immediately upon
hatching out, then goes out and plasters the door over carefully to
exclude all intruders. Wonderful intelligence? Not intelligence at all.
Its acts were dictated not by plans for the future, but by pressure from
the past. Let the supply of clay fail, or the race of spiders become
extinct, and the wasp is helpless and its species will perish. Likewise
the _race_ of bees and ants have done wonderful things, but _individual_
bees and ants are very stupid and helpless when confronted by any novel
conditions to which their race has not been accustomed.

Man starts in as blindly as the lower animals; but, thanks to his higher
mental powers, this blindness soon gives way to foresight, and he is
able to formulate purposeful ends and adapt his activities to their
accomplishment. Possessing a larger number of instincts than the lower
animals have, man finds possible a greater number of responses to a more
complex environment than do they. This advantage, coupled with his
ability to reconstruct his experience in such a way that he secures
constantly increasing control over his environment, easily makes man the
superior of all the animals, and enables him to exploit them for his own
further advancement.

2. LAW OF THE APPEARANCE AND DISAPPEARANCE OF INSTINCTS

No child is born with all its instincts ripe and ready for action. Yet
each individual contains within his own inner nature the law which
determines the order and time of their development.

INSTINCTS APPEAR IN SUCCESSION AS REQUIRED.--It is not well that we
should be started on too many different lines of activity at once, hence
our instincts do not all appear at the same time. Only as fast as we
need additional activities do they ripen. Our very earliest activities
are concerned chiefly with feeding, hence we first have the instincts
which prompt us to take our food and to cry for it when we are hungry.
Also we find useful such abbreviated instincts, called _reflexes_, as
sneezing, snuffling, gagging, vomiting, starting, etc.; hence we have
the instincts enabling us to do these things. Soon comes the time for
teething, and, to help the matter along, the instinct of biting enters,
and the rubber ring is in demand. The time approaches when we are to
feed ourselves, so the instinct arises to carry everything to the mouth.
Now we have grown strong and must assume an erect attitude, hence the
instinct to sit up and then to stand. Locomotion comes next, and with it
the instinct to creep and walk. Also a language must be learned, and we
must take part in the busy life about us and do as other people do; so
the instinct to imitate arises that we may learn things quickly and
easily.

We need a spur to keep us up to our best effort, so the instinct of
emulation emerges. We must defend ourselves, so the instinct of
pugnacity is born. We need to be cautious, hence the instinct of fear.
We need to be investigative, hence the instinct of curiosity. Much
self-directed activity is necessary for our development, hence the play
instinct. It is best that we should come to know and serve others, so
the instincts of sociability and sympathy arise. We need to select a
mate and care for offspring, hence the instinct of love for the other
sex, and the parental instinct. This is far from a complete list of our
instincts, and I have not tried to follow the order of their
development, but I have given enough to show the origin of many of our
life's most important activities.

MANY INSTINCTS ARE TRANSITORY.--Not only do instincts ripen by degrees,
entering our experience one by one as they are needed, but they drop out
when their work is done. Some, like the instinct of self-preservation,
are needed our lifetime through, hence they remain to the end. Others,
like the play instinct, serve their purpose and disappear or are
modified into new forms in a few years, or a few months. The life of the
instinct is always as transitory as is the necessity for the activity
to which it gives rise. No instinct remains wholly unaltered in man, for
it is constantly being made over in the light of each new experience.
The instinct of self-preservation is modified by knowledge and
experience, so that the defense of the man against threatened danger
would be very different from that of the child; yet the instinct to
protect oneself in _some_ way remains. On the other hand, the instinct
to romp and play is less permanent. It may last into adult life, but few
middle-aged or old people care to race about as do children. Their
activities are occupied in other lines, and they require less physical
exertion.

Contrast with these two examples such instincts as sucking, creeping,
and crying, which are much more fleeting than the play instinct, even.
With dentition comes another mode of eating, and sucking is no more
serviceable. Walking is a better mode of locomotion than creeping, so
the instinct to creep soon dies. Speech is found a better way than
crying to attract attention to distress, so this instinct drops out.
Many of our instincts not only would fail to be serviceable in our later
lives, but would be positively in the way. Each serves its day, and then
passes over into so modified a form as not to be recognized, or else
drops out of sight altogether.

SEEMINGLY USELESS INSTINCTS.--Indeed it is difficult to see that some
instincts serve a useful purpose at any time. The pugnacity and
greediness of childhood, its foolish fears, the bashfulness of
youth--these seem to be either useless or detrimental to development.
In order to understand the workings of instinct, however, we must
remember that it looks in two directions; into the future for its
application, and into the past for its explanation. We should not be
surprised if the experiences of a long past have left behind some
tendencies which are not very useful under the vastly different
conditions of today.

Nor should we be too sure that an activity whose precise function in
relation to development we cannot discover has no use at all. Each
instinct must be considered not alone in the light of what it means to
its possessor today, but of what it means to all his future development.
The tail of a polliwog seems a very useless appendage so far as the
adult frog is concerned, yet if the polliwog's tail is cut off a perfect
frog never develops.

INSTINCTS TO BE UTILIZED WHEN THEY APPEAR.--A man may set the stream to
turning his mill wheels today or wait for twenty years--the power is
there ready for him when he wants it. Instincts must be utilized when
they present themselves, else they disappear--never, in most cases, to
return. Birds kept caged past the flying time never learn to fly well.
The hunter must train his setter when the time is ripe, or the dog can
never be depended upon. Ducks kept away from the water until full grown
have almost as little inclination for it as chickens.

The child whom the pressure of circumstances or unwise authority of
parents keeps from mingling with playmates and participating in their
plays and games when the social instinct is strong upon him, will in
later life find himself a hopeless recluse to whom social duties are a
bore. The boy who does not hunt and fish and race and climb at the
proper time for these things, will find his taste for them fade away,
and he will become wedded to a sedentary life. The youth and maiden must
be permitted to "dress up" when the impulse comes to them, or they are
likely ever after to be careless in their attire.

INSTINCTS AS STARTING POINTS.--Most of our habits have their rise in
instincts, and all desirable instincts should be seized upon and
transformed into habits before they fade away. Says James in his
remarkable chapter on Instinct: "In all pedagogy the great thing is to
strike while the iron is hot, and to seize the wave of the pupils'
interest in each successive subject before its ebb has come, so that
knowledge may be got and a habit of skill acquired--a headway of
interest, in short, secured, on which afterwards the individual may
float. There is a happy moment for fixing skill in drawing, for making
boys collectors in natural history, and presently dissectors and
botanists; then for initiating them into the harmonies of mechanics and
the wonders of physical and chemical law. Later, introspective
psychology and the metaphysical and religious mysteries take their turn;
and, last of all, the drama of human affairs and worldly wisdom in the
widest sense of the term. In each of us a saturation point is soon
reached in all these things; the impetus of our purely intellectual zeal
expires, and unless the topic is associated with some urgent personal
need that keeps our wits constantly whetted about it, we settle into an
equilibrium, and live on what we learned when our interest was fresh and
instinctive, without adding to the store."

There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

THE MORE IMPORTANT HUMAN INSTINCTS.--It will be impossible in this brief
statement to give a complete catalogue of the human instincts, much
less to discuss each in detail. We must content ourselves therefore with
naming the more important instincts, and finally discussing a few of
them: _Sucking_, _biting_, _chewing_, _clasping objects with the
fingers_, _carrying to the mouth_, _crying_, _smiling_, _sitting up_,
_standing_, _locomotion_, _vocalization_, _imitation_, _emulation_,
_pugnacity_, _resentment_, _anger_, _sympathy_, _hunting and fighting_,
_fear_, _acquisitiveness_, _play_, _curiosity_, _sociability_,
_modesty_, _secretiveness_, _shame_, _love_, _and jealousy_ may be said
to head the list of our instincts. It will be impossible in our brief
space to discuss all of this list. Only a few of the more important will
be noticed.

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