HOW WE KNOW.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 823, 23 May 1910, Page 8

HOW WE KNOW.

EXPERT ERRORS. SCIENCE AND COMMON SENSE. ' ■ (Br J.Q.X.) What, interested -mo most in tho Duco insurance case was that it threw into strong relief. the fact that: there are two ways of deciding whether a ship is seaworthy—the scientific way and the common-sense, or instinctive, or rule-of-thumT),' way of the ordinary practical seaman. The jury apparently found some difficulty in appraising tho respective merits of tho two classes of evidence. And a perplexity similar to theirs is ambushed in every field of action and every avenue ef 'thought. Which are we going to trust, common sense or scientific method ? Either is available on almost every i subject. High authorities-may be quoted on the .' Bide of common sense. Herbert Spencer boasted that he never troubled to master the rules of grammar; yet he wrote exceedingly good English. Moro than that, he took from no less a master than Addison a passage which no less a scholar than Matthew Arnold had pronounced to be "classical English, perfect in lucidity,- measure, and propriety," and showed that it was full of such defects as redundance of lepithets, duplications of meaning, and inconsistent metaphors. Whereupon he. slyly observed that if he had not, when young, effectually resisted that classical culture which Mr. Arnold thought needful he might, perhaps, have been able to see perfection in what his ignorance caused him to regard as defects. In discovering the errors of the Addisonian specimen he admits that he had the help of psychology and logic, but his demonstration can be understood and accepted by people who canuot claim acquaintance with either of those sciences. Is ; logic, in which Herbert Spencer trusted, of any more practical value than the grammatical and classical learning, which did not. protect Matthew Arnold from error? Ruskin, for Dne, thought not. One of his critics had written a book, which he admitted to be "learned, temperate, thoughtful, everything in feeling and aim that a book should be," yet he had no difficulty in showing that- its first argumentative statement was nonsense. Whence he proceeded: "No less intenso and marvellous are the logical errors into which our brat writers are continually falling,_ owing to the notion that laws of logic will help them better than common sense." Whereas, any man who can reason at all, does it instinctively, and takes leaps over in--termediato syllogisms by the score, yet never misses his footing at the end of the leap; but he who cannot instinctively _ argue, might as well, with the gout in both feet, try to follow a chamois hunter by the help of crutches as to follow, by the help of syllogism, s person who has the right use of his leason."

The moral is, I suppose, that experts are Uablo to make mistakes; and this, I think, is a very cheerful and hopeful moral, for, otherwise, it were alarming to contemplate thoso vast fields of human activity \which science has only begun to conquer, and .where - we must all walk, or stumble, forward by the aid of what common ;sense, imperfect knowledge, instinct, intuition, or other broken light we may possess or obtain.': The science of sociology is in its infancy, yet we all have a voice in the making and unmaking of social institutions. Economics has ■ • hardly risen from the stage of polemics, but those who misunderstand it and those cho do.not profess to understand it at all co-operate in framing or abolishing tariffs, laws against monopoly and systems of industrial arbitration.' Even those who do not meddle with such questions at allmust buy and sell, pay .and receive dividends, rents, or wages, though they - may have no accurate knowledge of the*■ natural ■ laws. which govern the production and distribution of wealth. If the experts in such ■. things were always, right, the rest of -us would eventually place complete confidence in them, and we should have unalloyed government by experts; .And as one field of activity after another—politics, economics, religion, trade, literature, law, marriage, medicine—came under the absolute sway of scientific knowledge, the whole social scheme wonld be more and more skilfully managed, and the life of the individual would be gradually narrowed down to the sole and simple duty of doing as he was bid and believing what he was told. And the individual under . that regime might as well be a horse or a dog as a man. He would require bo other qualities than the docile virtues of the domestic animals. That is why it is good and pleasant to know that the scientists, even where they are most certain, are often wrong. Such authority as they may have can only be givfen them by the comparatively unscientific, but not wholly foolish, community at largo. They must show me and my neighbour that their science agrees with our common sense, and is, in fact, common sense highly developed. We, on our part, must bo ready to listen and understand, and must not, for instance, allow our craving for a scare to delude us into believing, in spite of proof to the contrary, that the swish of a comet's tail will burn us'all to cinders. And even science and common seuse taken together are not the only available guides. There is another—or should we say there are others?—for even when a. man is in the dark as to facts, andi uninstructed as to natural laws, and out of reach of friendly or professional advice, and yet must act, it is within his power to take decisions which he will never regret. On this point some would quote Holy Writ, but tho testimony of one who has been called tho Prince of Sceptics may suffice in this place. Montaigne admits an experience like the promptings of the Daemon of Socrates, "weake in reason, and violent in perswasion and disswasion (which was more ordinarie to Socrates) by which I havo so happily and so pro« fitably suffred my selfo to be transported, as they might perhaps be thought to containe some matter of divine inspiration."