Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 66.djvu/72

68, much less the whole of all sets. His record will contain incomplete parts of different sets of significant elements, but no complete set of any one. The obscure factors of each set are quite sure to be overlooked and the obtrusive factors of several sets indiscriminately commingled. The method of colorless observation is thus seriously defective in the completeness of its products, while it successfully guards them from bias.

Standing over against it, in strong contrast, is the method which at once endeavors to seek out and put together the phenomena that are thought to be significant. This leads promptly to the construction of a theory or an explanation which soon comes to guide the work and gives rise to

The chief effort here centers on an elucidation of phenomena, not on an exhaustive determination of the facts. Properly enough the crown of the work is the end, explanation is brought to the forefront and eagerly made the immediate end of endeavor. As soon as a phenomenon is presented, a theory of elucidation is framed. Laudable enough in itself, the theory is liable to be framed before the phenomena are fully and accurately observed. The elucidation is likely to embrace only the more obtrusive phenomena, not the full complement of the obtrusive and the unimpressive. The field is quite likely to present many repetitions of the leading phenomena and a theory framed to fit those that first arrest attention naturally fits the oft-recurrent phenomena of the same class. While there may be really no new evidence, nor any real test, nor any further inquiry into the grounds of the theory, its repeated application with seeming success leads insidiously to the delusion that it has been strengthened by additional investigation. Unconsciously then it begins to direct observation to the facts it so happily elucidates. Unconsciously the facts to which it gives no meaning become less impressive and fall into neglect. Selective observation creeps insidiously in and becomes a persistent habit. Soon also affection is awakened with its blinding influence. The authorship of an original explanation that seems successful easily begets fondness for one's intellectual child. This affection adds its alluring influence to the previous tendency toward an unconscious selection. The mind lingers with pleasure upon the facts that fall happily into the embrace of the theory, and feels a natural indifference toward those that assume a refractory or meaningless attitude. Instinctively, there is a special searching-out of phenomena that support the theory; unwittingly also there is a pressing of the theory to make it fit the facts and a pressing of the facts to make them fit the theory. When these biasing tendencies set in, the mind soon glides into the partiality of paternalism, and the theory rapidly rises to a position of control. Unless it happens to be the true one, all hope of the best results is gone. The defects of this method are obvious and grave.