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Jonathon Simpson

How JavaScript Works

Master the Basics of JavaScript and Modern
Web App Development
Jonathon Simpson
Belfast, Antrim, UK

ISBN 978-1-4842-9737-7 e-ISBN 978-1-4842-9738-4

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-9738-4

© Jonathon Simpson 2023

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively
licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is
concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of
illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in
any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or
dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.

The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks,

service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the
absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the
relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general
use.

The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the
advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate
at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the
editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the
material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have
been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

This Apress imprint is published by the registered company APress

Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
The registered company address is: 1 New York Plaza, New York, NY
10004, U.S.A.
Introduction
JavaScript is one of the most used programming languages in the world.
When JavaScript was first created, it was a useful tool for adding
interactivity to web pages. Since then, it has evolved to power back-end
servers, massive front-end web applications, and even iPhone and
Android applications via tools like Electron and Tauri.
While JavaScript has matured as a language its complexity seems to
have increased. What started as simple scripts inside HTML tags now
seems to involve compile steps via TypeScript and frameworks like
React, Vue.js, or Svelte. For those getting started in JavaScript, it can be
overwhelming, even though these tools are just an additional level of
abstraction which ultimately compiles down into vanilla JavaScript.
In this book, we’ll learn how JavaScript works from the bottom up,
which will prepare you for everything web development and JavaScript-
led app development can throw at you. We’ll also explain some of the
quirks you’ll find in JavaScript and how many of them have come to be
due to JavaScript’s long and varied history.
After that, we’ll cover JavaScript’s unique approach to inheritance
before moving into more complicated topics like memory management,
classes, APIs, and web workers. We’ll explore how the weakly typed
system JavaScript employs has both benefits and downsides.
As a fundamental part of the web stack, and with more people using
it every day, there has never been a better time to learn JavaScript. This
book will guide you through everything you need to know, so that you
can master modern web app development.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1:​Introduction to JavaScript
JavaScript Fundamentals
JavaScript’s Type Classification
What Is JavaScript Used For?​
Writing JavaScript
Summary
Chapter 2:​Code Structure and Logical Statements
Getting Started
Common Code Conventions
Semicolons
Spacing
Variable and Function Naming
JavaScript Variables
Setting Variables with let
Setting Variables with var
Setting Variables with const
Defining Variables Without Values
Assignment Operators
Variable Concatenation
JavaScript Comments
Logical Statements
If…else Statements
Switch Statements
Block Scoping with Logical Statements
Conditional Operator in Variables
 Logical Statement Comparison Operators
Logical Statement Logical Operators
Summary
Chapter 3:​Introduction to Objects, Arrays
Arrays
Getting the Length of an Array
Getting the Last Element of an Array
Array Manipulation Methods
Push and Unshift
Pop and Shift
Splice
Objects
Accessing Object Data
Object Mutability
Spread Syntax or the “Three Dots”
Prototype-Based Programming
Prototypical Inheritance
[[Prototype]] vs.​prototype (and _​_​proto_​_​)
Object Shallow and Deep Copies
Summary
Chapter 4:​Loops and Iterables
Loops
Break and Continue in Loops
Loop Labels
Iteration
Iterables and For Loops
 Array forEach methods
String Iteration
Iteration Protocol
Objects Are Not Iterable by Default
Summary
Chapter 5:​References, Values, and Memory Management
Introduction
Stacks
The Event Loop
The Heap
Object and Reference Equality
Summary
Chapter 6:​Functions and Classes
Introduction to Functions
Running Arguments with the “Three Dots”
Alternative Ways to Call Functions
Unnamed Function Expressions
Anonymous Functions
Functions with Arrow Notation
Functions and the “this” Keyword
Sloppy Mode
Arrow Notation Functionality with this
Calling Functions with Context
Constructor Functions in JavaScript
Additional Function Methods
Getters and Setters
 Generator Functions
Classes
Classes and Constructor Functions
Class Methods
Class Method Types
Class Inheritance via Extends
Summary
Chapter 7:​Types
Primitive Types
Primitive Wrappers
Using Wrappers to Create Types
The Number Type and NaN
Number Type Mathematics
Mathematical Methods
The Date Type
The Symbol Type
Truthy and Falsy Types
Truthy and Falsy Operators
Logical AND Operator
Logical OR Operator
Nullish Coalescing
Optionality
Summary
Chapter 8:​Manipulating and Interacting with HTML
Window and Document Objects
The Window Object
 The Document Object Model
Selecting HTML Elements
The Order of HTML
NodeLists and HTMLCollections
Manipulating HTML After Selection
Adding Events to HTML Elements
Creating a Modal Window
Creating a Counter
Event Types
Drag and Drop
The e variable
Creating New Elements with JavaScript
Manipulating CSS with JavaScript
HTMLElements and Changing Styles in JavaScript
Adding New Style Sheets to HTML Pages
Setting CSS Variables
Getting CSS Properties and HTML Dimensions
Summary
Chapter 9:​Maps and Sets
Sets
Modifying Sets
Checking Set Membership
Checking Set Size
Merging Sets
Set Iteration and Values
Maps
 Retrieving Map Properties
Checking for Key Existence on a Map
Telling How Big a Javascript Map Is
Iterating, Merging, and Accessing Maps
Keys and Values in Maps
Serialization of Maps in JavaScript
Summary
Chapter 10:​Fetching Data, APIs, and Promises
What Are APIs?​
Understanding HTTP
RESTful Design
Understanding APIs Through a Node.​JS Web Server
Testing Endpoints with Postman
The Benefits of APIs
Sending Data to APIs with JSON
The fetch Function
A Deep Dive into Fetch Options
Asynchronicity and Promises
Promise Methods:​then, finally, and catch
The await Keyword
Useful Promise Methods
Summary
Chapter 11:​Introduction to Web APIs
Web APIs
Frequently Used Web APIs
URL API
 Web Storage API
Web Notifications API
History API
Summary
Chapter 12:​Errors and the Console
The Console Object
Console Errors, Debugs, Warnings, and Info
Console Timing
Console Counting
Other Useful Console Methods
Console Grouping
Console Tables
Errors and Exceptions
try…catch
Generating Errors
Handling Specific Errors
Summary
Chapter 13:​The Canvas
Introduction
Drawing and Images
Drawing Rectangles
Drawing Circles
Drawing Triangles
Drawing Images
Drawing Text
Interactivity and Creating a Drawing Application
 Animations
Summary
Chapter 14:​Web Workers and Multithreading
Introduction
Using Web Workers
Sending Messages to and from Web Workers
Restrictions on Web Workers
Conclusion
Index
About the Author
Jonathon Simpson
studied at UCL and currently works in product development at Revolut,
a global neobank and financial technology company that offers banking
services. He has over 15 years of web development experience working
on a wide range of products and services. Jonathon also owns and
operates a popular software engineering blog focusing on JavaScript
and web development.
About the Technical Reviewer
Russ Ferguson
is a web application developer living in Brooklyn, New York. He has
worked on projects for organizations such as Ann Taylor, MTV, DC
Comics, and LG. Currently, he is the Vice President at Bank of America
managing a team of Angular developers, building internal applications.
Other documents randomly have
different content
this was “The Amphibious Vehicle,” and that it would move equally well
on land or sea.
“You know,” said he, “what the prophet Ezekiel said about the ‘wheel in
the middle of a wheel’?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“Well, this is it.”
There was something convincing in this matter-of-fact statement. The
“wheel within a wheel” had been to me little more than a figure of
speech, but here it was made out of good pine lumber, with a plank in the
middle for the living creature to sit on. It was as if I had fallen through a
trap door into another age. Here was a literal-minded contemporary of
Ezekiel, who, having heard of the wheel within a wheel, had proceeded at
once to make one. I ascended into the precarious seat, and we conversed
upon the spiritual and temporal possibilities of the vehicle. I found that on
the scriptural argument he was clearly ahead of me, being able to quote
chapter and verse with precision, while my references were rather vague.
In the field of mechanics he was also my superior. I could not have made
the vehicle, having not yet emerged beyond the stone age. As we talked I
forgot that we were at the mouth of the Penobscot. We were on the
“river of Chebar,” and there was no knowing what might happen.

* * * * * *
The belated philosophers and inventors, who think the thoughts of the
ancient worthies after them, live peaceful lives. What matters it that they
are separated by a millennium or two from the society in which they were
fitted to shine? They are self-sufficing, and there are few who care to
contradict them. It is not so with one who is morally belated. There is
something pathetic in the condition of one who cherishes the ambition of
being a good man, but who has not informed himself of the present
“state of the art.”
Now and then an ethical revolution takes place. New ideals are
proclaimed, and in their light all things are judged. The public conscience
becomes sensitive in regard to courses of conduct which heretofore had
been unchallenged. Every such advance involves a waste in established
reputations. There are always excellent men who are not aware of what
has been going on. They keep on conforming scrupulously to the old
standards, being good in the familiar ways that were commended in their
youth. After a time they find themselves in an alien world, and in that
world they are no longer counted among the best people. The tides of
moral enthusiasm are all against them. The good man feels his solid
ground of goodness slipping away from under him. Time has played false
with his moral conventionalities. He is like a polar bear on a fast-
diminishing iceberg, growling at the Gulf Stream.
When a great evil has been recognized by the world, there is a revision of
all our judgments. A new principle of classification is introduced, by which
we differentiate the goats from the sheep. It is hard after that to revive
the old admirations. The temperance agitation of the last century has not
abolished drunkenness, but it has made the conception of a pious,
respectable drunkard seem grotesque. It has also reduced the business of
liquor-selling to a decidedly lower place in the esteem of the community.
When we read to-day of the horrors of the slave trade, we reconstruct in
our imagination the character of the slave trader,—and a brutal wretch he
is. But in his day the Guinea captain held his own with the best. He was a
good husband and father, a kind neighbor, a generous benefactor.
President Ezra Stiles of Yale College, in his “Literary Diary,” describes such
a beautiful character. It was when Dr. Stiles was yet a parish minister in
Newport that one of his parishioners died, of whom he wrote: “God had
blessed him with a good Estate and he and his Family have been eminent
for Hospitality to all and Charity to the poor and afflicted. At his death he
recommended Religion to his Children and told them that the world was
nothing. The only external blemish on his Character was that he was a
little addicted to the marvelous in stories of what he had seen in his
Voyages and Travels. But in his Dealings he was punctual, upright, and
honest, and (except as to the Flie in the Oynment, the disposition to tell
marvelous Stories of Dangers, Travels, &c.), in all other Things he was of
a sober and good moral character, respected and beloved of all, so as to
be almost without enemies. He was forward in all the concerns of the
Church and Congregation, consulting its Benefit and peaceably falling in
with the general sense without exciting quarrels, parties, &c., and even
when he differed from his Brethren he so differed from them that they
loved him amidst the differences. He was a peaceable man and promoted
Peace.”
It was in 1773 that this good man died in the odor of sanctity. It is quite
incidentally that we learn that “he was for many years a Guinea captain,
and had no doubt of the slave trade.” His pastor suggests that he might
have chosen another business than that of “buying and selling the human
species.” Still, in 1773, this did not constitute an offense serious enough
to be termed a fly in the ointment. In 1785, Dr. Stiles speaks of the slave
trade as “a most iniquitous trade in the souls of men.” Much may happen
in a dozen years in changing one’s ideas of moral values. In another
generation the civilized world was agreed that the slave trade was piracy.
After that there were no fine Christian characters among the slave
traders.
There is evidence that at the present time there is an awakening of the
social conscience that threatens as great a revolution as that which came
with the abolition of the slave trade. Business methods which have been
looked upon as consistent with high moral character are being
condemned as “the sum of all villainies.” The condemnation is not yet
universal, and there are still those who are not conscious that anything
has happened. The Christian monopolist, ruthlessly crushing out his
competitors and using every trick known to the trade, has no more
doubts as to the rightfulness of his proceedings than had the good
Newport captain in regard to the slave trade.
It is a good time to have his obituary written. His contemporaries
appreciate his excellent private virtues, and have been long accustomed
to look leniently on his public wrong-doing. The new generation, having
agreed to call his methods robbery, may find the obituary eulogies
amusing.
 AN HOUR WITH OUR PREJUDICES

W E may compare the human mind to a city. It has its streets, its
places of business and amusement, its citizens of every degree.
When one person is introduced to another it is as if the warder drew back
the bolts, and the gates were thrown open. If he comes well
recommended he is given the freedom of the city. In the exercise of this
freedom, however, the stranger should show due caution.
There is usually a new quarter. Here the streets are well lighted and
policed, the crowds are cosmopolitan, and the tourist who wanders about
looking at the shop windows is sure of a civil reply to his questions. There
is no danger of highway robbers, though of course one may be taken in
by confidence men. But if he be of an inquiring mind and a lover of the
picturesque, he is not satisfied with this. After all, the new quarters are
very much alike, and one tires after a while of shop windows. The visitor
longs to explore the old town, with its winding ways, with its overhanging
houses, and its mild suggestions of decay.
But in the mental city the lover of the picturesque must remember that he
carries his life in his hands. It is not safe to say to a casual acquaintance,
“Now I have a fair idea of that part of your mind which is like that of any
other decently educated person. I have seen all the spick and span show
places, and admired all the modern improvements. Where are your ruins?
I should like to poke around a while in the more dilapidated section of
your intellect.”
Ah, but that is the Forbidden City. It is inhabited, not by orderly citizens,
under the rule of Right Reason, but by a lawless crowd known as the
Prejudices. They are of all sorts and conditions. Some are of aristocratic
lineage. They come from a long line of hereditary chiefs, who, as their
henchmen have deserted them, have recreated into their crumbling
strongholds. Some are bold, roistering blades who will not stand a
question; dangerous fellows, these, to meet in the dark! The majority,
perhaps, are harmless folk, against whom the worst that can be said is
that they have a knack of living without visible means of support.
A knowledge of human nature, as distinguished from a knowledge of
moral philosophy, is a perception of the important part played by
instinctive likes and dislikes, by perverse antipathies, by odd ends of
thought, by conclusions which have got hopelessly detached from their
premises—if they ever had any. The formal philosopher, judging others by
himself, works on the assumption that man is naturally a reasoning
animal, whereas experience teaches that the craving for the reasonable is
an acquired taste.
Of course we all have reasons for our opinions,—plenty of them! But in
the majority of cases they stand not as antecedents, but as consequents.
There is a reversal of the rational order like that involved in Dr. Hale’s
pleasant conceit of the young people who adopted a grandmother. In
spite of what intellectual persons say, I do not see how we can get along
without prejudices. A prejudice is defined as “an opinion or decision
formed without due examination of the facts or arguments which are
necessary to a just and impartial determination.” Now, it takes a good
deal of time to make a due examination of facts and arguments, even in
regard to a small matter. In the meantime our minds would be sadly
unfurnished. If we are to make a fair show in the world, we must get our
mental furniture when we set up housekeeping, and pay for it on the
installment plan.
Instead of taking a pharisaic attitude toward our neighbor’s prejudices, it
is better to cultivate a wise tolerance, knowing that human intercourse is
dependent on the art of making allowances. This is consistent with
perfect honesty. There is always something to admire if the critic is
sufficiently discriminating. When you are shown a bit of picturesque
dilapidation, it is quite possible to enjoy it. Said the Hebrew sage, “I went
by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of
understanding; and, lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had
covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down.
Then I saw, and considered it well: I looked upon it, and received
instruction.”
His point of view was that of a moralist. Had he also been a bit of an
artist, the sight of the old wall with its tangle of flowering briers would
have had still further interest.
When one’s intellectually slothful neighbor points with pride to portions of
his untilled fields, we must not be too hard upon him. We also have
patches of our own that are more picturesque than useful. Even if we
ourselves are diligent husbandmen, making ceaseless war on weeds and
vermin, there are times of relenting. Have you never felt a tenderness
when the ploughshare of criticism turned up a prejudice of your own? You
had no heart to harm the

Wee sleekit, cow’rin’, tim’rous beastie.

It could not give a good account of itself. It had been so long snugly
ensconced that it blinked helplessly in the garish light. Its

wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!

Its silly wa’s the win’s are strewin’!
And naething now to big a new ane.

You would have been very angry if any one had trampled upon it.
This is the peculiarity about a prejudice. It is very appealing to the person
who holds it. A man is seldom offended by an attack on his reasoned
judgments. They are supported by evidence and can shift for themselves.
Not so with a prejudice. It belongs not to the universal order; it is his very
own. All the chivalry of his nature is enlisted in its behalf. He is, perhaps,
its only defense against the facts of an unfriendly world.
We cannot get along without making allowances for these idiosyncrasies
of judgment. Conversation is impossible where each person insists on
going back, all the time, to first principles, and testing everything by an
absolute standard. With a person who is incapable of changing his point
of view we cannot converse; we can only listen and protest. We are in the
position of one who, conscious of the justice of his cause, attempts to
carry on a discussion over the telephone with “Central.” He only hears an
inhuman buzzing sound indicating that the line is busy. There is nothing
to do but to “hang up the ’phone.”
When a disputed question is introduced, one may determine the true
conversationalist by applying the method of Solomon. Let it be proposed
to divide the subject so that each may have his own. Your eager
disputant will be satisfied, your genial talker is aghast at the proposition,
for he realizes that it would kill the conversation. Instead of holding his
own, he awaits developments. He is in a mood which can be satisfied
with something less than a final judgment. It is not necessary that his
friend’s opinions should be just; it is sufficient that they are characteristic.
Whatever turn the talk may take, he preserves an easy temper. He is a
heresy-hunter,—not of the grim kind that goes hunting with a gun; he
carries only a camera. If he stirs up a strange doctrine he does not care
to destroy it. When he gets a snap-shot at human nature he says,—

Those things do best please me

That befall preposterously.

An English gentleman relates a conversation he had with Prince Bismarck.

The prince was inclined to take a pessimistic view of the English people.
He thought that there was a degeneration in the race, which he attributed
to the growing habit of drinking water. “Not that he believed that there
was any particular virtue per se inherent in alcoholic drink; but he was
sorry to hear that the old ‘three bottle men’ were dying out and leaving
no successors. He had a suspicion that it meant shrinkage in those
qualities of the English which had made them what they were in the past,
and for which he had always felt a sincere admiration.”
It would have been very easy to drift into debate over this proposition.
The English gentleman, however, defended his countrymen more
diplomatically. “I replied that with regard to the water-drinking proclivities
of my countrymen there was a good deal of calumny connected with the
story. It is true that a certain section of English society has indeed taken
to water as a beverage. But to argue therefrom that the English people
have become addicted to water would be to draw premature conclusions
from insufficient data. In this way I was able to calm Prince Bismarck’s
fears in regard to what the future might bring forth, and our conversation
reverted to Royalty.”
Each nation has its own set of preconceptions. We must take them
altogether, or not at all. They are as compact and as natural a growth as
the concentric layers of an onion. Here is a sentence from Max Müller’s
“Autobiography,” thrown out quite incidentally. He has been telling how
strange it seemed, when first coming to Oxford, to find that the students
got along without dueling. Fighting with swords seemed to him the
normal method of developing manliness, though he adds that in the
German universities “pistol duels are generally preferred by theological
students, because they cannot easily get a living if the face is scarred all
over.”
This remark must be taken as one would take a slice of the national
onion. One assumption fits into another. To an Englishman or an
American there is an incongruity that approaches the grotesque,—
because our prejudices are different. It all becomes a matter-of-fact
statement when we make the proper assumptions in regard to dueling in
general and theological duels in particular. Assuming that it is necessary
for theological students to fight duels, and that the congregations are
prejudiced against ministers whose faces have been slashed by swords,
what is left for the poor theologues but pistols? Their method may seem
more dangerous than that adopted by laymen, but Max Müller explains
that the danger is chiefly to the seconds.
Individual peculiarities must be taken into account in the same way.
Prince Bismarck, in dining with the Emperor, inquired the name of the
brand of champagne, which proved to be a cheap German article. “The
Emperor explained, ‘I drink it from motives of economy, as I have a large
family; then again I drink it from patriotic motives.’ Thereupon I said to
the Emperor, ‘With me, your Majesty, patriotism stops short in the region
of my stomach.’”
It is evident that here was a difference not to be arbitrated by reason. If
the Emperor could not understand the gastronomic limitations to the
Chancellor’s patriotism, neither could the Chancellor enter into the
Emperor’s anxieties, as he economized for the sake of his large family.
One cannot but wonder at the temerity of a person who plunges into
conversation with a stranger without any preliminary scouting or making
sure of a line of retreat. Ordinary prudence would suggest that the first
advances should be only in the nature of a reconnoissance in force. You
may have very decided prejudices of your own, but it is not certain that
they will fraternize with those of your new acquaintance. There is danger
of falling into an ambush. There are painful occasions when we remember
the wisdom of the Son of Sirach: “Many have fallen by the edge of the
sword, but not so many as have fallen by the tongue.” The mischief of it
is that the most kindly intent will not save us. The path of the lover of
mankind is beset by difficulties for which he is not prepared. There are so
many antagonisms that are unpredictable.
When Nehemiah came to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem he remarked
grimly, “When Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the
Ammonite, heard of it, it grieved them exceedingly that there was come a
man to seek the welfare of the children of Israel;” and the trouble was
that a large number of the children of Israel themselves seem to have
resented the interference with their habitual misfortunes. The experience
of Nehemiah is that of most reformers. One would suppose that the
person who aims at the greatest good for the greatest number would be
greeted with instant applause. The difficulty is that the greatest good is
just what the greatest number will not tolerate. One does not need to
believe in human depravity to recognize the prejudice which most persons
have against anything which is proposed as good for them. The most
successful philanthropists are those who most skillfully conceal their
benevolent intent.
In Coleman’s “Life of Charles Reade” there is a paragraph which gives us
a glimpse of a prejudice that has resisted the efforts of the most learned
men to eradicate it. An incident is there recorded that took place when
Reade was a fellow in Magdalen College. “Just as I was about to
terminate my term of office (I hope with credit to myself and the
’Varsity), an untoward incident occurred which embittered my relations
for life with two very distinguished men. Professor Goldwin Smith and his
friend John Conington, who belonged to us, had attempted to inaugurate
a debating society. A handful of unmannerly young cubs, resenting the
attempt to teach them political economy, ducked poor Conington under
the college pump.”
“Resenting the attempt to teach them political economy!”—What is the
source of that resentment? What psychologist has fathomed the abyss of
the dark prejudice which the natural man has against those who would
improve his mind? It is a feud which reaches back into hoar antiquity.
Doubtless the accumulated grievances of generations of schoolboys have
intensified the feud, but no amelioration of educational methods has put
an end to it. In the most successful teacher you may detect a nervous
strain like that which the trainer of wild beasts in the arena undergoes.
His is a perilous position, and every faculty must be on the alert to hold
the momentary ascendency. A single false motion, and the unmannerly
young cubs would be upon their victim.
Must we not confess that this irrational resentment against our
intellectual benefactors survives, in spite of all discipline, into mature life?
We may enlarge the area of our teachableness, but there are certain
subjects in regard to which we do not care to be set right. The polite
conventionality according to which a person is supposed to know his own
business is an evidence of this sensitiveness. Of course the assumption is
not justified by facts. A man’s own business is just the thing he is
conscious of not knowing, and he would give anything in a quiet way to
find out. Yet when a candid friend ventures to instruct him, the old
irrational resentment flashes out. What we call tact is the ability to find
before it is too late what it is that our friends do not desire to learn from
us. It is the art of withholding, on proper occasions, information which we
are quite sure would be good for them.
The prejudice against our intellectual superiors, which leads us to take
their well-meant endeavors in our behalf as of the nature of personal
insults, is matched by the equally irrational repulsion which many superior
people have for their inferiors. Nothing can be more illogical than the
attitude of these gifted ones who use their gifts as bludgeons with which
to belabor the rest of us. When we read the writings of men who have a
stimulating sense of their own genius, we are struck by their nervous
irritability whenever they mention “mediocrity.” The greater number of the
quarrels of the authors, which the elder Disraeli chronicled, arose from
the fact that the authors had the habit of accusing one another of this
vice. One would suppose mediocrity to be the sum of all villainies, and
that the mediocre man was continually plotting in the night watches
against the innocent man of genius; and yet what has the mediocre man
done to deserve this detestation? Poor fellow, he has no malice in him!
His mediocrity is only an afterthought. He has done his level best; his
misfortune is that several million of his fellowmen have done as well.
The superior man, especially if his eminence be accidental, is likely to get
a false notion of those who stand on the level below him. The biographer
of an English dignitary says that the subject of his memoir was not really
haughty, but “he was apt to be prejudiced against any one who seemed
to be afraid of him.” This is a not uncommon kind of prejudice; and in
nine cases out of ten it is unfounded. The great man should remember
that most of those whose manners seem unduly respectful mean nothing
personal.
As great Pompey passes through the streets of Rome, he may be
pardoned for thinking meanly of the people. They appear to be a
subservient lot, with no proper interests of their own, their happiness
dependent on his passing smile,—and he knows how little that is worth.
He sees them at a disadvantage. Let him leave his triumphal chariot, and,
in the guise of Third Citizen, fall into friendly chat with First Citizen and
Second Citizen, and his prejudices will be corrected. He will find that
these worthy men have a much more independent and self-respecting
point of view than he had thought possible. They are out for a holiday;
they are critics of a spectacle, easily pleased, they will admit; but if no
one except Pompey is to be seen to-day, why not make the most of him?
Pompey or Cæsar, it matters not; “the play’s the thing.”

* * * * * *
The origin of some of our prejudices must be sought in the childhood of
the race. There are certain opinions which have come down from the
cave-dwellers without revision. They probably at one time had reasons to
justify them, though we have no idea what they were. There are others,
which seem equally ancient, which originated in the forgotten experiences
of our own childhood. The prehistoric age of myth and fable does not lie
far behind any one of us. It is as if Gulliver had been educated in Lilliput,
and, while he had grown in stature, had never quite emancipated himself
from the Lilliputian point of view. The great hulking fellow is always
awkwardly trying to look up at things which he has actually outgrown. He
tries to make himself believe that his early world was as big as it seemed.
Sometimes he succeeds in his endeavors, and the result is a curious
inversion of values.
Mr. Morley, in speaking of Lord Palmerston’s foreign policy, says: “The
Sultan’s ability to speak French was one of the odd reasons why Lord
Palmerston was sanguine of Turkish civilization.” This association of ideas
in the mind of the Prime Minister does seem odd till we remember that
before Lord Palmerston was in the cabinet he was in the nursery. The
fugitive impressions of early childhood reappear in many curious shapes.
Who would be so hard-hearted as to exorcise these guiltless ghosts?
Sometimes, in reopening an old book over which long ago we had
dreamed, we come upon the innocent source of some of our long-
cherished opinions. Such discovery I made in the old Family Bible when
opening at the pages inserted by the publisher between the Old
Testament and the Apocrypha. On many a Sunday afternoon my stated
hour of Bible reading was diversified by excursions into these uncanonical
pages. There was a sense of stolen pleasure in the heap of miscellaneous
secularities. It was like finding under the church roof a garret in which
one might rummage at will. Here were tables of weights and measures,
explanations about shekels, suggestions in regard to the probable length
of a cubit, curious calculations as to the number of times the word “and”
occurred in the Bible. Here, also, was a mysterious “Table of Offices and
Conditions of Men.”
I am sure that my scheme of admirations, my conception of the different
varieties of human grandeur, has been colored by that “Table of Offices
and Conditions of Men.” It was my “Social Register” and Burke’s
“Peerage” and “Who’s Who?” all in one. It was a formidable list, beginning
with the patriarchs, and ending with the deacons. The dignity of the
deacon I already knew, for my uncle was one, but his function was vastly
exalted when I thought of him in connection with the mysterious
personages who went before. There was the “Tirshatha, a governor
appointed by the kings of Assyria,”—evidently a very great man. Then
there were the “Nethinims, whose duty it was to draw water and to
cleave wood.” When I was called upon to perform similar services I
ventured to think that I myself, had I lived in better days, might have
been recognized as a sort of Nethinim.
Here, also, I learned the exact age of the world, not announced
arbitrarily, but with the several items all set down, so that I might have
verified them for myself, had I been mathematically gifted. “The whole
sum and number of years from the beginning of the world unto the
present year of our Lord 1815 is 5789 years, six months, and the said odd
ten days.” I have no prejudice in favor of retaining that chronology as far
as the thousands are concerned. Five thousand years is one way of
saying it was a very long time. If the geologists prefer to convey the
same idea by calling it millions, I am content; but I should hate to give up
the “said odd ten days.”
From the same Table of Offices and Conditions I imbibed my earliest
philosophical prejudices; for there I learned the difference between the
Stoics and the Epicureans.
The Stoics were described succinctly as “those who denied the liberty of
the will.” Just what this might mean was not clear, but it had an ugly
sound. The Stoics were evidently contentious persons. On the other hand,
all that was revealed concerning the Epicureans was that they “placed all
happiness in pleasure.” This seemed an eminently sensible idea. I could
not but be favorably disposed toward people who managed to get
happiness out of their pleasures.
To the excessive brevity of these definitions I doubtless owe an erroneous
impression concerning that ancient, and now almost extinct people, the
Samaritans. The name has had to me a suggestion of a sinister kind of
scholarship, as if the Samaritans had been connected with some of the
black arts. Yet I know nothing in their history to justify this impression.
The source of the error was revealed when I turned again to the “Table of
Offices and Conditions of Men” and read once more, “Samaritans,
mongrel professors, half heathen and half Jew.” How was I to know that
the reference was to professors of religion, and not to professors of the
arts and sciences?
As there are prejudices which begin in verbal misunderstandings, so there
are those which are nourished by the accidental collocation of words. A
noun is known by the adjectives it keeps. When we hear of dull
conservatism, rabid radicalism, selfish culture, timid piety, smug
respectability, we receive unfavorable impressions. We do not always stop
to consider that all that is objectionable really inheres in the qualifying
words. In a well-regulated mind, after every such verbal turn there should
be a call to change partners. Let every noun take a new adjective, and
every verb a new adverb.
Clever Bohemians, having heard so much of “smug respectability,” take a
dislike to respectability. But some of the smuggest persons are not
respectable at all,—far from it! Serenely satisfied with their own
irresponsibility, they look patronizingly upon the struggling world that
owes them a living. I remember a visit from one of these gentry. He
called to indicate his willingness to gratify my charitable impulses by
accepting from me a small loan. If I did not believe the story of his
frequent incarcerations I might consult the chaplain of the House of
Correction. He evidently considered that he had a mission. He went about
offering his hard and impenitent heart as a stone on which the
philanthropists might whet their zeal. Smug respectability, forsooth!
From force of habit we speak of the “earnest” reformer, and we are apt to
be intolerant of his lighter moods. Wilberforce encountered this prejudice
when he enlivened one of his speeches with a little mirth. His opponent
seized the opportunity to speak scornfully of the honorable gentleman’s
“religious facetiousness.” Wilberforce replied very justly that “a religious
man might sometimes be facetious, seeing that the irreligious did not
always escape being dull.”
An instance of the growth of a verbal prejudice is that which in certain
circles resulted in the preaching against what was called “mere morality.”
What the preachers had in mind was true enough. They objected to mere
morality, as one might say, “Mere life is not enough to satisfy us, we must
have something to live on.” They would have more than a bare morality.
It should be clothed with befitting spiritual raiment. But the parson’s zeal
tended to outrun his discretion, and forgetting that the true object of his
attack was the mereness and not the morality, he gave the impression
that the Moral Man was the great enemy of the faith. At last the
parishioner would turn upon his accuser. “You need not point the finger of
scorn at me. What if I have done my duty to the best of my ability! You
should not twit on facts. If it comes to that, you are not in a position to
throw stones. If I am a moral man, you’re another.”
There are prejudices which are the result of excessive fluency of speech.
The flood of words sweeps away all the natural distinctions of thought. All
things are conceived of under two categories,—the Good and the Bad. If
one ill is admitted, it is assumed that all the rest follow in its train. There
are persons who cannot mention “the poor” without adding, “the weak,
the wretched, the oppressed, the downtrodden, the suffering, the sick,
the sinful, the erring,” and so on to the end of the catalogue. This is very
disconcerting to a young fellow who, while in the best of health and
spirits, is conscious that he is rather poor. He would willingly admit his
poverty were it not for the fear of being smothered under the wet blanket
of universal commiseration.
When the category of the Good is adopted with the same
undiscriminating ardor the results are equally unfortunate. We are
prejudiced against certain persons whom we have never met. We have
heard nothing but good of them, and we have heard altogether too much
of that. Their characters have been painted in glaring virtues that swear
at one another. We are sure that we should not like such a combination of
unmitigated excellencies, for human nature abhors a paragon. And yet
the too highly commended person may, in reality, not be a paragon at all,
but a very decent fellow. He would quickly rise in our regard were it not
for the eulogies which hang like millstones around his neck.
It is no easy thing to praise another in such a way as to leave a good
impression on the mind of the hearer. A virtue is not for all times. When a
writer is too highly commended for being laborious and conscientious we
are not inclined to buy his book. His conscience doth make cowards of us
all. It may be proper to recommend a candidate for a vacant pulpit as
indefatigable in his pastoral labors; but were you to add, in the goodness
of your heart, that he was equally indefatigable as a preacher, he would
say, “An enemy hath done this.” For the congregation would suspect that
his freedom from fatigue in the pulpit was likely to be gained at their
expense.
The prejudices which arise from verbal association are potent in
preventing any impartial judgment of men whose names have become
household words. The man whose name has become the designation of a
party or a theory is the helpless victim of his own reputation. Who takes
the trouble to pry into the personal opinions of John Calvin? Of course
they were Calvinistic. When we hear of the Malthusian doctrine about
population, we picture its author as a cold-blooded, economical Herod,
who would gladly have ordered a massacre of the innocents. Let no one
tell us that the Reverend Richard Malthus was an amiable clergyman, who
was greatly beloved by the small parish to which he ministered. In spite
of all his church wardens might say, we would not trust our children in
the hands of a man who had suggested that there might be too many
people in the world. But in such cases we should remember that a man’s
theories do not always throw light upon his character. When a
distinguished physician has a disease named after him, it is understood
that the disease is the one he discovered, and not the one he died of.
When the Darwinian hypothesis startled the world, many pious
imaginations conceived definite pictures of the author of it. These pictures
had but one thing in common,—their striking unlikeness to the quiet
gentleman who had made all this stir. By the way, Darwin was the
innocent victim of two totally disconnected lines of prejudice. After he had
outlived the disfavor of the theologians, he incurred the contempt of the
apostles of Culture; all because of his modest confession that he did not
enjoy poetry as much as he once did. Unfortunately, his scientific habit of
mind led him to say that he suspected that he might be suffering from
atrophy of the imaginative faculty. Instantly every literal-minded reader
and reviewer exclaimed, “How dreadful! What a judgment on him!” Yet,
when we stop to think about it, the affliction is not so uncommon as to
call for astonishment. Many persons suffer from it who are not addicted
to science.

* * * * * *
After all, these are harmless prejudices. They are content with their own
little spheres; they ask only to live and let live. There are others, however,
that are militantly imperialistic. They are ambitious to become world
powers. Such are those which grow out of differences in politics, in
religion, and in race.
Political animosities have doubtless been mitigated by freer social
intercourse, which gives more opportunities for meeting on neutral
ground. It is only during a heated campaign that we think of all of the
opposing party as rascals. There is time between elections to make the
necessary exceptions. It is customary to make allowance for a certain
amount of partisan bias, just as the college faculty allows a student a
certain number of “cuts.” It is a just recognition of human weakness.
Our British cousins go farther, and provide means for the harmless
gratification of natural prejudices. There are certain questions on which
persons are expected to express themselves with considerable fervor, and
without troubling themselves as to the reasonableness of their
contention. In a volume of published letters I was pleased to read one
from a member of the aristocracy. He had been indulging in trivial
personalities, when suddenly he broke off with “Now I must go to work
on the Wife’s Sister’s Question; I intend to make a good stout protest
against that rascally bill!” There is no such exercise for the moral nature
as a good stout protest. We Americans take our exercise spasmodically.
Instead of going about it regularly, we wait for some extraordinary
occasion. We make it a point of sportsmanship to shoot our grievance on
the wing, and we are nervously anxious lest it get out of range before we
have time to take aim.
Not so the protesting Briton. He approves of the answer of Jonah when
he was asked, “Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd?” Jonah,
without any waste of words, replied, “I do well to be angry.” When the
Englishman feels that it is well for him to be angry, he finds constitutional
means provided. Parliament furnishes a number of permanent objects for
his disapproval. Whenever he feels disposed he can make a good stout
protest, feeling assured that his indignation is well bestowed. He has such
satisfaction as that which came to Mr. Micawber in reading his protest
against the villainies of Uriah Heep: “Much afflicted but still intensely
enjoying himself, Mr. Micawber folded up the letter and handed it with a
bow to my aunt, as something she might like to keep.”
These stout-hearted people have learned not only how to take their
pleasures sadly, but, what is more to the purpose, how to take their
sadnesses pleasantly. We Americans have, here, something to learn. We
should get along better if we had a number of argument-proof questions
like that in regard to marriage with the deceased wife’s sister which could
be warranted to recur at regular intervals. They could be set apart as a
sort of public playground for the prejudices. It would at least keep the
prejudices out of mischief.
Religious prejudice has an air of singularity. The singular thing is that
there should be such a variety. If we identify religion with the wisdom
that is from above, and which is “first pure, then peaceable, easy to be
entreated, without partiality,” it is hard to see where the prejudice comes
in. Religious prejudice is a compound of religion and several decidedly
earthly passions. The combination produces a peculiarly dangerous
explosive. The religious element has the same part in it that the innocent
glycerine has in nitro-glycerine. This latter, we are told, is “a compound
produced by the action of a mixture of strong nitric and sulphuric acids on
glycerine at low temperatures.” It is observable that in the making of
religious prejudice the religion is kept at a very low temperature, indeed.
We are at present in an era of good feeling. Not only is there an
interchange of kindly offices between members of different churches, but
one may detect a tendency to extend the same tolerance to the opposing
party in the same church. This is a real advance, for it is always more
difficult to do justice to those who differ from us slightly than to those
whose divergence is fundamental. To love our friends is a work of nature,
to love our enemies is a work of grace; the troublesome thing is to get on
with those who are “betwixt and between.” In such a case we are likely to
fall between nature and grace as between two stools. Almost any one can
be magnanimous in great affairs, but to be magnanimous in trifles is like
trying to use a large screw-driver to turn a small screw.
In a recently published correspondence between dignitaries of the Church
of England I find many encouraging symptoms. The writers exhibit a
desire to do justice not only to the moral, but also to the intellectual, gifts
of those who differ from them even slightly. There is, of course, enough
of the old Adam remaining to make their judgments on one another
interesting reading. It is pleasant to see brethren dwelling together in
unity,—a pleasure seldom prolonged to the point of satiety. Thus the
Dean of Norwich writes to the Dean of Durham in regard to Dean Stanley.
Alluding to an opinion, in a previous letter, in regard to Archbishop Tait,
the writer says: “I confess I shouldn’t have ranked him among the great
men of the day. Of our contemporaries I should have assigned that rank,
without hesitation, to little Stan, though I quite think he did more
mischief in our church and to religion than most men have it in them to
do. Still I should say that little Stan was a great man in his way.” There
you may see a mind that has, with considerable difficulty, uprooted a
prejudice, though you may still perceive the place where the prejudice
used to be.
While the methods of the exact sciences have had a discouraging effect
on partisan and sectarian prejudices, they seem, for the moment, to have
given new strength to those which are the result of differences in race.
Time was when Anti-Semitism derived its power from religious rancor.
The cradle hymn which the Puritan mother sang began sweetly,—

Hush, my dear, lie still and slumber!

Holy angels guard thy bed!
But after a while the mother thinks of the wickedness of the Jews:—

Yet to read the shameful story

How the Jews abused their King,
How they served the Lord of Glory,
Makes me angry while I sing.

In these days, the Anti-Semites are not so likely to be angry while they
sing, as while they cast up their accounts.

* * * * * *
The natural sciences discriminate between classes rather than between
individuals. Sociology deals with groups, and not with persons.
Anthropology acquaints us with the aboriginal and unmoralized man. It
emphasizes the solidarity of the clan and the persistence of the cult.
Experimental psychology is at present interested in the sub-conscious and
instinctive life. For its purpose it treats a man as a series of nervous
reactions. Human history is being rewritten as a branch of Natural History.
Eliminating the part played by personal will, it exhibits an age-long
warfare between nations and races.
This is all very well so long as we remember what it is that we are
studying. Races, cults, and social groups exist and have their history.
There is no harm in defining the salient characteristics of a race, and
saying that, on the whole, one race is inferior to another. The difficulty
comes when this rough average is made the dead line beyond which an
individual is not allowed to pass.
In our Comedy of Errors, which is always slipping into tragedy, there are
two Dromios on the stage,—the Race and the Individual. The Race is an
abstraction which can bear any amount of punishment without flinching.
You may say anything you please about it and not go far wrong. It is like
criticising a composite photograph. There is nothing personal about it.
Who is offended at the caricatures of Brother Jonathan or of John Bull?
We recognize certain persistent national traits, but we also recognize the
element of good-humored exaggeration. The Jew, the Slav, the Celt, the
Anglo-Saxon have existed for ages. Each has admired himself, and been
correspondingly disliked by others. Even the Negro as a racial abstraction
is not sensitive. You may, if you will, take up the text, so much quoted a
generation ago, “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be....
God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and
Canaan shall be his servant.” Dromio Africanus listens unmoved to the
exegesis of Petroleum V. Nasby and his compeers at the Crossroads: “God
cust Canaan, and sed he shood be a servant forever. Did he mean us to
pay him wages? Not eny: for ef he hed he wood hev ordered our tastes
and habits so es we shood hev hed the wherewithal to do it.”
The impassive Genius of Africa answers the Anglo-Saxon: “If it pleases
you to think that your prejudice against me came out of the Ark, so be it.
If you find it agreeable to identify yourself with Japheth who shall
providentially be enlarged, I may as well be Canaan.”
So long as the doctrinaires of the Crossroads are dealing only with highly
generalized conceptions no harm is done. But now another Dromio
appears. He is not a race; he is a person. He has never come that way
before, and he is bewildered by what he sees and hears. Immediately he
is beset by those who accuse him of crimes which some one who looks
like him has committed. He is beaten because he does not know his
place; how can he know it, stumbling as he does upon a situation for
which he is altogether unprepared? It is an awkward predicament, this of
being born into the world as a living soul. Under the most favorable
conditions it is hard for the new arrival to find himself, and adjust himself
to his environment. But this victim of mistaken identity finds that he has
been judged and condemned already. When he innocently tries to make
the most of himself a great uproar is created. What right has he to
interfere with the preconceived opinions of his betters? They understand
him, for have they not known him for many generations?
Poor man Dromio! Whether he have a black skin or a yellow, and
whatever be the racial type which his features suggest, the trouble is the
same. He is sacrificed on the altar of our stupidity. He suffers because of
our mental color-blindness, which prevents our distinguishing persons.
We see only groups, and pride ourselves on our defective vision. By and
by we may learn to be a little ashamed of our crudely ambitious
generalizations. A finer gift is the ability to know a man when we see him.
It may be that Nature is “careful of the type,” and “careless of the single
life.” If that be so, it may be the part of wisdom for us to give up some of
our anxieties about the type, knowing that Nature will take care of that.
Such relief from excessive cosmic responsibility will give us much more
time for our proper work, which is to deal justly with each single life.
 HOW TO KNOW THE FALLACIES

M Y friend Scholasticus was in a bad way. He had been educated before

the elective system came in, and he had a pathetic veneration for the
old curriculum. It was to him the sacred ark, now, alas, carried away into
the land of the Philistines. He cherished it as a sort of creed containing
the things surely to be learned by a gentleman, and whoso hath not
learned these things, let him be anathema. In meeting the present-day
undergraduates, it was hard to say which amazed him most, the things
they knew or the things they did not know. Perhaps the new knowledge
seemed to him the more uncouth.
“The intellectual world,” he would say, “is topsy-turvy. What is to be
expected of a generation that learns to write before it learns to read, and
learns to read before it learns to spell,—or rather which never does learn
to spell. Everything begins wrong end foremost. In my day small children
were supposed to be ‘pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw,’ until
such time as they were old enough to be put to stiff work on the First
Reader. Nowadays, the babes begin with the esoteric doctrine of their
playthings. Even the classics of infancy are rationalized. I was about to
buy a copy of ‘Mother Hubbard and her Dog’ for a dear young friend,
when I discovered that it was a revised version. The most stirring incident
was given thus,—

She went to the baker’s to buy some bread,

And when she came back the dog looked dead.

That wasn’t the way the tale was told to me. I was told that the poor dog
was dead, and I believed it. That didn’t prevent my believing a little while
after that the doggie was dancing a jig. I took it for granted that that was
the way dogs did in Mother Hubbard’s day. Nowadays, the critics in bib
and tucker insist that the story must conform to what they have
prematurely learned about the invariable laws of nature.
“I shouldn’t mind this if they kept on reasoning. But it’s a false start. After
the wide generalizations of infancy have been forgotten, the youth begins
to specialize. He takes a small slice of a subject, ignoring its more obvious
features and its broader outlines. He has a contempt for general ideas.
What we studied, he takes for granted. He’s very observing, but he
doesn’t put two and two together. There they stand in his mind, two
separate ideas, politely ignoring one another, because they have not been
properly introduced. The result of all this is evident enough. How many
people do you come across with whom it is a pleasure to hold an
argument? Not many! They don’t know the rules of the game. You can’t
enter a drawing-room without hearing questions discussed in a way
possible only to those whose early education in the art of reasoning had
been neglected. The chances are that every one of the fallacies we
learned about in Whately could appear in good society without anybody
being able to call them by their Latin names.
“‘Doesn’t this follow from that?’ the facile talker asks, as if that were all
that is necessary to constitute a valid argument. Of course it follows; his
assertions follow one another like a flock of sheep. But what short work
our old Professor would have made with these plausible sequences!
“What a keen scent the old man had for fallacies! Even when the
conclusion was obviously sound, he insisted that we should come by it
honestly. He would never admit that in such matters the end justifies the
means. I remember his merciless exposure of the means by which some
unscrupulous metaphysicians accumulated their intellectual property. His
feeling about the ‘Undistributed Middle’ was much the same as that of
Henry George about the ‘Unearned Increment.’ How he used to get after
the moonshiners who were distilling arguments by the illicit process of the
major term! In these days the illicit process goes on openly. The growth
of the real sciences does not in the least discourage the pseudo-sciences.
It rather seems to stimulate them.
“For many persons, a newly discovered fact is simply a spring-board from
which they dive into a bottomless sea of speculation. They pride
themselves on their ability to jump at conclusions, forgetting that jumping
is an exercise in which the lower orders excel their betters. If an elephant
could jump as far, in proportion to his weight, as a flea, there would be
no holding him on the planet. Every new discovery is followed by a dozen
extravagances, engineered by the Get-wise-quick people. There is always
some Young Napoleon of Philosophy who undertakes to corner the truth-
market. It’s like what happened at the opening of Oklahoma Territory.
Before the day set by the government when they all were to start fair in
their race for farms, a band of adventurers called ‘Sooners’ smuggled
themselves across the line. When the bona fide settler arrived on his
quarter-section, he found an impudent Sooner in possession. You can’t
find any fresh field of investigation that isn’t claimed by these Sooners. It
all comes because people are no longer educated logically.”

* * * * * *
When Scholasticus was in this mood, it was difficult to do anything with
him. It was in vain to tell him that he was narrow, for, like all narrow men,
he took that as a compliment. It is the broad way, he reminded me, that
leads to intellectual destruction. Still, I attempted to bring him to a better
frame of mind.
“Scholasticus,” said I, “the old order changes. You are a survivor of
another period. You were educated according to a logical order. You
learned to spell out of a Spelling Book, and to read out of a Reader, and
to write not by following the dictates of your own conscience, but by
following the copy in a Copy Book; and you learned to speak correctly by
committing to memory the rules of grammar and afterwards the
exceptions.”
“And it was a good way, too,” interrupted Scholasticus. “It gave us a
respect for law and order, to learn the rules and to abide by them. Now, I
understand, they don’t have grammar, but ‘language work.’ The idea is, I
suppose, that if the pupils practice the exceptions they needn’t bother
about the rules. When I studied geography, we began with a definition of
the word geography, after which we were told that the earth is a planet,
and that three fourths of its surface is water, a fact which I have never
forgotten. Nowadays they hold that geography, like charity, should begin
at home, so the first thing is to make a geodetic survey of the back yard.
By the time they work up to the fact that the earth is a planet, the pupils
have learned so many other things that it makes very little impression on
their minds.”
“Scholasticus,” said I, “I was saying the old order changes lest one good
custom should corrupt the educational world. They were great people for
rules in your day. It was an inheritance from the past. You remember the
anecdote of Ezekiel Cheever, head master of the Boston Latin School, who
taught Cotton Mather Latin. A pupil writes, ‘My master found fault with
the syntax of one word, which was not so used heedlessly, but
designedly, and therefore I told him there was a plain grammar rule for it.
He angrily replied that there was no such rule. I took the grammar and
showed the rule to him. Then he said, “Thou art a brave boy. I had forgot
the rule.”’ That takes us back to a time when there was a superstitious
reverence for rules. We don’t reason so rigidly from rules now, we
develop the mind according to a chronological rather than a logical order.
We let the ideas come according to the order of nature.”
At this, the wrath of Scholasticus bubbled over. “‘The order of nature’!
The nature of what? A cabbage head grows according to an order natural
to cabbages. But a rational intelligence is developed according to the laws
of reason. The first thing is to formulate the laws, and then to obey them.
Logic has to do with the laws of rational thought, just as grammar has to
do with the laws of correct speech. Nowadays, the teacher seems to be
afraid of laying down the law. I visited a model school the other day. It
wasn’t a school at all, according to the definition in the old-fashioned
book I used to read: ‘A school is a place where children go to study
books. The good children when they have learned their lessons go out to
play, the idle remain and are punished.’ According to the modern method,
it is the teacher who must remain to be punished for the idleness of her
pupils. It’s her business to make the lessons interesting. If their attention
wanders, she is held responsible. The teacher must stay after hours and
plan new strategic moves. She must ‘by indirections find directions out,’—
while the pupil is resisting one form of instruction, she suddenly teaches
him something else. In this way the pupil’s wits are kept on the run. No
matter how they scatter, there is the teacher before him.”
“Why is not that a good way?” I said. “It certainly brings results. The
pupil gets on rapidly. He learns a lesson before he knows it.”
“He never does know it,” growled Scholasticus. “And what’s worse, he
doesn’t know that he doesn’t know it. By this painless method he has
never been compelled to charge his mind with it and to reason it out. And
besides, it’s death on the teacher. Ezekiel Cheever taught that Boston
Latin School till he was over ninety years old, and never had a touch of
nervous prostration. He didn’t have to lie awake planning how to hold the
rapt attention of his pupils. If there was any chance of the grammar rules
not being learned, he let them do the worrying. It was good for them.
There was a race of sturdy thinkers in those days. They knew how to deal
with knotty problems. If they survived the school, they could not be
downed in the town meeting.”
“Scholasticus,” I said, “I don’t like the way you talk. The trouble with you
is that you took your education too hard. I fancy that I see every lesson
you ever learned sticking out of your consciousness like the piles of
stones in a New Hampshire pasture. They are monuments of industry, but
they lack a certain suavity. You are doing what most Americans do,—
whenever they find anything wrong they lay the blame on the public
schools. Just because some of the younger men at your club argue
somewhat erratically, you blame the whole modern system of education.
It’s a way you clever people have,—you are not content with one good
and sufficient reason for your statement of fact. You must reinforce it by
another of a more general character. It makes me feel as I do when, a
faucet needing a new washer, I send for a plumber,—and behold twain!
One would be enough, if he would attend strictly to business. Every
system has its failures. If that of the present day seems to have more
than its share, it is because its failures are still in evidence, while those of
your generation are mostly forgotten. Oblivion is a deft housemaid, who
tidies up the chambers of the Past, by sweeping all the dust into the dark
corners. On the other hand, you drop into the Present amid the disorder
of the spring cleaning, when everything is out on the line. If you could
recall the shining lights in your Logic class, you might admit that some of
them had the form of reasoning without the power thereof. It was in your
day, wasn’t it, that the criticism was made on the undergraduate thesis:—

Although he wrote it all by rote,

He did not write it right.

I couldn’t help thinking of those lines when I was listening just now to
your reasoning. The real point, Scholasticus, is this, which seems to have
escaped you. You talk of the laws of the mind. When you were in college
it seemed a very simple thing to formulate these laws. There was no Child
Psychology, giving way before you knew it to Adolescence, where
everything was quite different. There was no talk about subliminal
consciousness, where you couldn’t tell which was consciousness and
which was something else. The mind in your day came in one standard
size.”
“Yes,” said Scholasticus, “when we were in the Academy, we had Watts on
the Mind. Watts treated his subject in a straightforward way; he had
nothing about nervous reactions; he gave us plain Mind. When we got
into college we had Locke on the Understanding. When it was time to
take account of conscience, we had Paley’s ‘Moral Science.’ This, with the
‘Evidences,’ made a pretty good preparation for life.”
“So it did,” I said, “and you have done credit to your training. But since
that time Psychologists have made a number of discoveries which render
it necessary to revise the old methods.”
Seeing that he, for the first time, was giving me his attention, I thought
that it might be possible to win him away from that futile and acrid
criticism of the present course of events, which is the besetting sin of
men of his age, to the more fruitful criticism by creation.
“Scholasticus,” I said, “here is your opportunity. You complain that Logic is
going out. The trouble is that it has been taught in an antiquated way.
The logicians followed the analogy of mathematics. They invented all
sorts of formal figures and diagrams, and were painfully abstract. When
you were learning to reason, you had to commit to memory a formula like
this: ‘Every y is x; every z is y; therefore every z is x. E.g., let the major
term (which is represented by x) be “One who possesses all virtue,” the
minor term (z) “Every man who possesses one virtue,” and the middle
term (y) “Every man who possesses prudence,” and you have the
celebrated argument of Aristotle that “the virtues are inseparable.”’
“Now you can’t make the youth of this generation submit to that kind of
argumentation. They are willing to admit the virtues are inseparable, if
you say so, but they are not going to take time to figure it out. You can’t
arouse their interest by demonstrating that ‘If A is B, C is D, C is not D,
therefore A is not B.’ They say, ‘What of it?’ They refuse to concern
themselves about the fate of letters of the alphabet. Such methods
prejudice them against Logic. They prefer not to reason at all, rather than
do it in such an old-fashioned way. Besides, they have peeped into the
Psychology for Teachers, and they know their rights. Such teaching is not
good pedagogics. The youthful mind must be shielded from abstractions;
if it is not, there’s no knowing what might happen. It will not do to go at
your subject in such a brutal way. This is the age of the concrete and the
vital. Things are observed in the state of nature. The birds must be in the
bush, and the fishes in the water, and the flowers must be caught in the
very act of growing. That’s what makes them interesting. If the youthful
mind is to be induced to love Nature, Nature must do her prettiest for the
youthful mind. Otherwise it will be found that the mental vacuum abhors
Nature.
“If there is to be a revival of Logic, it must be attached to something in
which people are already interested. People are interested in biological
processes. They like to see things grow, and to help in the process as far
as they can without disturbing Nature. Why don’t you, Scholasticus, try
your hand at a text-book which shall insinuate a sufficient knowledge of
the principles of sound reasoning, under the guise of Botany or Hygiene
or Physical Culture, or some of the branches that are more popular? I
believe that you could make a syllogism as interesting as anything else.
All you have to do is to make people think that it is something else.”
At the time Scholasticus only sniffed scornfully at my suggestion; but not
many days had passed before I began to notice a change in his
demeanor. Instead of his usual self-sufficiency, there came into his eyes a
wistful plea for appreciation. He had the chastened air of one who no
longer sits in the chair of the critic, but is awaiting the moment when he
shall endure criticism.
From such signs as these I inferred that Scholasticus was writing a book.
There is nothing that so takes the starch out of a man’s intellect and
reduces him to a state of abject dependence on the judgment of his
fellow beings as writing a book. For the first question about a book is not,
“Is it good?” but, “Will anybody read it?” When this question is asked, the
most commonplace individual assumes a new importance. He represents
the Public. The Author wonders as to what manner of man he is. Will he
like the Book?
I was not therefore surprised when one day Scholasticus, in a
shamefaced way, handed me the manuscript of a work entitled, “How to
Know the Fallacies; or Nature-Study in Logic.”
In these pages Scholasticus shows a sincere desire to adapt himself to a
new order of things. He no longer stands proudly on the quarter-deck of
the good ship Logic, with a sense of fathomless depths of rationality
under the keel. Logic is a poor old stranded wreck. His work is like that of
the Swiss Family Robinson: to carry off the necessities of life and the
more portable luxuries, and to use them in setting up housekeeping on
the new island of Nature-Study.
I cannot say that he has been entirely successful in making the art of
reasoning a pleasant out-of-door recreation. He has not altogether
overcome the stiffness which is the result of his early education. In
treating thought as if it were a vegetable, he does not always conceal the
fact that it is not a vegetable. There are, therefore, occasional jolts as he
suddenly changes from one aspect of his subject to another.
I was, however, much pleased to see that, instead of ambitiously
attempting to treat of the processes of valid reasoning, he has been
content to begin with those forms of argumentation which are more
familiar.
His preface does what every good preface should do: it presents the
Author not at his worst nor at his best, but in a salvable condition, so that
the reader will say, “He is not such a bad fellow, after all, and doubtless
when he gets warmed up to his work he will do better.” It may be as well
to quote the Preface in full.
“Careless Reader, in the intervals between those wholesome recreations
which make up the more important portion of life, you may have
sometimes come upon a thought. It may have been only a tiny
thoughtlet. Slight as it was in itself, it was worthy of your attention, for it
was a living thing. Pushing its way out of the fertile soil of your
subconscious being, it had come timidly into the light of day. If it seemed
to you unusual, it was only because you have not cultivated the habit of
noticing such things. They are really very common.
“If you can spare the time, let us sit down together and pluck up the
thoughtlet by the roots and examine its structure. You may find some
pleasure, and perhaps a little profit, in these native growths of your mind.
“When you take up a thought and pull it to pieces, you will see that it is
not so simple as it seems. It is in reality made up of several thoughts
joined together. When you try to separate them, you find it difficult. The
connective tissue which binds them together is called inference. When
several thoughts growing out of the same soil are connected by inference,
they form what is called an argument. Arguments, as they are found in
the state of Nature, are of two kinds; those that hang together, and those
that only seem to hang together; these latter are called Fallacies.
“In former times they were treated as mere weeds and were mercilessly
uprooted. In these days we have learned to look upon them with a
kindlier eye. They have their uses, and serve to beautify many a spot that
otherwise would remain barren. They are the wild flowers of the
intellectual world. I do not intend to intrude my own taste or to pass
judgment on the different varieties; but only to show my readers how to
know the fallacies when they see them. It may be said that mere
nomenclature is of little value. So it is in itself; yet there is a pleasure in
knowing the names of the common things we meet every day. The search
for fallacies need never take one far afield. The collector may find almost
all the known varieties growing within his own enclosure.
“Let us then go out in the sunshine into the pleasant field of thought.
There we see the arguments—valid and otherwise—as they are growing.
You will notice that every argument has three essential parts. First is the
root, called by the old logicians in their crabbed language the Major
Premise. Growing quite naturally out of this is the stem, called the Minor
Premise; and crowning that is the flower, with its seed vessels which
contain the potentialities of future arguments,—this is called the
Conclusion.
“Let the reader observe this argument: ‘Every horse is an animal;’ that is
the root thought. ‘Sheep are not horses;’ that is the stem shooting into
the air. ‘Therefore, sheep are not animals;’ that is the conclusion, the full
corn in the ear.
“There is a pleasing impression of naturalness about the way in which
one thought grows out of that which immediately preceded it. There is a
sudden thrill when we come to the ‘therefore,’ the blossoming time of the
argument. We feel that we are entering into one of Nature’s secret
processes. Unless our senses are deceiving us, we are actually reasoning.
“After a while, when curiosity and the pride of possession lead us to look
more carefully at our treasure, we are somewhat surprised. It is not as it
seemed. A little observation convinces us that, in spite of our
argumentation, sheep are animals, and always have been. Thus, quite by
accident, and through the unaided exercise of our own faculties, we have