19. Three steps in that in scien tific thinking there are three important steps : First, the collection of facts or phenomena thru observation or experience; second, the tentative explanation of those phenomena by an hypothesis or scientific guess; third, the confirmation of this hypothesis by patient observation of the phenomena as they occur in nature. Note also that the hypothesis, if finally confirmed and generally accepted, is known as a theory or law, a nat ural law being merely a statement of the order in which phenomena inevitably follow one another. The laws of a science are often called its fundamental prin ciples. For example, the laws of motion and the law of gravitation are fundamental principles of physics. Without a comprehension of them no man can explain the simplest phenomenon of the physical world.
The foregoing discussion of reasoning processes may seem irrelevant, unnecessary and wearisome. to some of my readers. But it was necessary.
The phenomena of business are determined by laws or fundamental principles, and it -is important that every subscriber of the Alexander Hamilton Institute should understand how these laws are discovered and applied.
20. hero of "Pilgrim's Progress," that wonderful allegory written by John Bunyan while in prison, was beset by numerous enemies who drew near to him in the guise of friends, but he re buffed them all and finally reached his journey's end. Some of the worst enemies of the man who is seeking for the truth will appeal to him as old friends in whom lie has had great confidence.
One of the worst of these enemies is Prejudice, which is a cherished belief based on reiterated hearsay or tradition. Voltaire called it "the reason of fools." Boys are taught to believe what they are told by their elders, especially their teachers and parents. The average American boy grows up with many beliefs firmly rooted in his mind. He is sure that the United States is the greatest country in the world; that its soldiers are the bravest, its railroad trains the fastest, and its boys the cleverest. Nobody could pos sibly cook better than his mother. The church his father and mother belong to is certainly the best one. How strange that people should belong to any other! The boy sheds many of his prejudices when he be comes a man, but he accumulates others when he goes into business. His first employer may exaggerate the value of sbrewdness and the boy- get a prejudice against candor and square dealing. As he continues in business he will get crude ideas about the money question, banking, the cause of high prices, railroad rates, or about the tyranny of capital over labor.
Very few men do any real thinking, yet all of them entertain very positive convictions on many subjects, and those who know the least are usually the most positive.
No man likes to part with an old and long cherished belief. It is as dear to him as an old friend. When he reads a book that demolishes one of his pet beliefs, he is in a hostile mood at once and is likely to throw the book down in disgust, denouncing the author as a mere theorist who does not know what he is writing about.
Our subscriber must guard against prejudice. He must resolve at the outset to drop any of his precon ceived opinions or prejudices if an author shows that they are not based on facts correctly interpreted. In other words, be must pursue the Modern Business Course with an open mind, eage; to be rid of ignorance and to know the truth. On the other. hand, lie must not accept as true whatever an author says unless be is convinced. If an author's statement does not seem reasonable, let him question-mark it and make it a problem for his own mind to work out. If he return to the problem from time to time, he will either dis cover the fallacy or error in the author's reasoning or will conclude after all that the author is right. Un happily, if the doubted statement runs counter to a cherished prejudice, the subscriber will be sorely tempted to condemn offhand the author's judgment and then give no more thought to it. That is why prejudice is an enemy against whom all of us must be on our guard.
21. The mere theorist.—There is a very common prejudice in business circles against the word "theory." If a college professor after long study of transporta tion or banking reaches a conclusion which is at vari ance with the ideas of men in business, his opinion at first receives little attention and less respect. You will hear men sa.y, "He is all right as a professor, but he is too theoretical, he does not really Imow what he is talking about." Or it will be something like this: "He is only a theOrist; a man can't understand this business unless he is really in it; I want the ideas of a practical man." The subscriber must rid himself of any prejudice against the word "theory." All our worth-while knowledge of the outer world is based upon theory. The law of gravitation is a theory. No man ever saw it actually in operation. When a man falls from a height, according to Newton's law, the earth is drawn toward him, as well as he toward the earth. But no man in falling is conscious of the earth's rising toward him—unless he is drunk. Our railroads, steamships, bridges and factories with all their machinery have been constructed in harmony with theories that have been carefully thought out and tested. If man theorized no more and began to for get what theory has already taught him, in a few gen erations the human race would again be in a state of barbarism.