XX. Curiosity

LET us, my friends, pass over this unfortunate incident, and get on to the next thing as quickly as possible. The next thing on our program is Truth. The one who best understands Truth is undoubtedly the Philosopher.—Here he is, and we shall commence without delay. Will some one volunteer to conduct the examination? Thank you, madam. Go right ahead.

The Lady. We wish to ask you a few questions.

The Philosopher. Certainly, madam. What about?

The Lady. About Truth.

The Philosopher. Dear, dear!

The Lady. Whom are you addressing?

The Philosopher. I beg your pardon!—It was only an exclamation of surprise. It has been so long since anybody has talked to me about Truth. How quaint and refreshing!

The Lady. Please do not be frivolous.

[Pg 138]The Philosopher. I am sorry—but really, it is amusing. Tell me, to which school do you belong?

The Lady. To the Julia Richmond High School, if you must know—though I don’t see what that has to do with Truth.

The Philosopher. Oh! You mean you are a school-teacher!

The Lady. Certainly. Doesn’t that suit you?

The Philosopher. It delights me. I feared at first you might be a Hegelian, or even a Platonist. Now that I find you are a Pragmatist like myself—

The Lady. Pragmatist? Yes, I have heard of Pragmatism. William James—summer course in Philosophy. But why do you think I am a Pragmatist?

The Philosopher. A school-teacher must be a pragmatist, madam, or go mad. If you really believed the human brain to be an instrument capable of accurate thinking, your experiences with your pupils and your principal, not to speak of your boards of education, would furnish you a spectacle of human wickedness and folly too horrible to be endured. But you realize that the poor things were never intended to think.

[Pg 139]The Lady. That’s true; they’re doing the best they can, aren’t they? They just can’t believe anything they don’t want to believe!

The Philosopher. That is to say, man is not primarily a thinking animal—he is a creature of emotion and action.

The Lady. Especially action. They are always in such a hurry to get something done that they really can’t stop to think about it! But I’m afraid all this is really beside the point. What we want to know is why the school fails so miserably in its attempt to teach children to think?

The Philosopher. Perhaps it is in too much of a hurry. But are you sure you really want children to learn to think?

The Lady. Of course we do!

The Philosopher. The greatest part of life, you know, can be lived without thought. We do not think about where we put our feet as we walk along an accustomed road. We leave that to habit. We do not think about how to eat, once we have learned to do it in a mannerly way. The accountant does not think about how to add a column of figures—he has his mind trained to the task. And there is little that cannot be done by the formation of proper habits, to the complete elimination of thought. The habits[Pg 140] will even take care of the regulation of the emotions. For all practical purposes, don’t you agree with me that thinking might be dispensed with?

The Lady. I hardly know whether to take you seriously or not—

The Philosopher. Can you deny what I say?

The Lady. But—but life isn’t all habit. We must think—in order to make—decisions.

The Philosopher. It is not customary. We let our wishes fight it out, and the strongest has its way. But I once knew a man who did think in order to make his decisions. The result was that he always made them too late. And what was worse, the habit grew upon him. He got to thinking about everything he wanted to do, with the result that he couldn’t do anything. I told him that he’d have to stop thinking—that it wasn’t healthy. Finally he went to a doctor, and sure enough the doctor told him that it was a well known disease—a neurosis. Its distinguishing mark was that the patient always saw two courses open to him everywhere he turned—two alternatives, two different ways of doing something, two women between whom he must choose, two different theories of life, and so on[Pg 141] to distraction. The reason for it, the doctor said, was that the patient’s will, that is to say the functioning of his emotional wish-apparatus, had become deranged, and the burden of decision was being put upon a part of the mind incapable of bearing it—the logical faculty. He cured my friend’s neurosis, and now he thinks no more about the practical affairs of life than you or I or anybody else. So you see thinking is abnormal—even dangerous. Why do you want to teach children to think?

The Lady. Well—it is rather taken for granted that the object of education is learning to think.

The Philosopher. But is that true? If it is, why do you teach your children the multiplication table, or the rule that the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides—unless in order to save them the trouble of thinking? By the way, what is the capital of Tennessee, and when did Columbus discover America?

The Lady. Nashville, 1492. Why?

The Philosopher You didn’t have to stop to think, did you? Your memory has been well trained. But if you will forgive the comparison, so has my dog’s been well trained; when I say,[Pg 142] ‘Towser, show the lady your tricks,’ he goes through an elaborate performance that would gladden your heart, for he is an apt pupil; but I don’t for a moment imagine that I have taught him to think.

The Lady. Then you don’t want children taught the multiplication table?

The Philosopher.. I? Most certainly I do. And so far as I am concerned, I would gladly see a great many other short cuts in mathematics taught, so as to save our weary human brains the trouble of thinking about such things. I am in fact one of the Honorary Vice-Presidents of the Society for the Elimination of Useless Thinking.

The Lady. I am afraid you are indulging in a jest.

The Philosopher.. I am afraid I am. But if you knew Philosophers better you would realize that it is a habit of ours to jest about serious matters. It is one of our short-cuts to wisdom. Read your Plato and William James again. Delightful humorists, both of them, I assure you. I fear you went to them too soberly, and in too much of a hurry.

The Lady. Doubtless your jokes have a historic sanctity, since you say so, but I do not feel that they have advanced our inquiry very much.

[Pg 143]The Philosopher. I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes. What do you want to know?

The Lady. I want to know what is the use of thinking?

The Philosopher. Ah, my jest was not in vain, if it provoked you to that. I should call that question the evidence of a real thought.

The Lady. Well, what is the answer?

The Philosopher. Oh, please don’t stop, now that you have made such a good start! Think again, and answer your own question.

The Lady. Hm....

The Philosopher. Yes?

The Lady. I was thinking of Newton and the apple. If it hadn’t been for Newton’s ability to think, he would never have formulated the law of gravitation.

The Philosopher. And what a pity that would have been—wouldn’t it?

The Lady. You mean that it makes very little practical difference to us?

The Philosopher. It would if the town were being bombarded. The Newtonian calculations are considered useful by the artillery schools. But it is true that it was Newton and not an artillery officer who made them.

[Pg 144]The Lady. You mean that the artillery captain would have been too intent on practical matters?

The Philosopher. And in too much of a hurry. Then there’s the steam-engine. Useful invention—the very soul of hurry. Who invented it—some anxious postilion who thought horses were too slow? Or somebody whose mind was so empty of practical concerns that it could be intrigued by a tea-kettle? And by the way, it was Stephenson, wasn’t it, who applied the steam-principle to locomotion? I’ve a very poor memory, but I think Watt’s engine was just a toy. No practical use whatever. Other people found out the practical uses for it. Arkwright. Fulton. Hoe. Et cetera.

The Lady. I see. The results of thinking may be put to use afterward, but the motive for thinking is not the desire to produce such results. I wonder if that is true?

The Philosopher. What is the common reproach against philosophers and scientists?

The Lady. That they are impractical. But inventors—

The Philosopher. Did you ever know an inventor?

The Lady. Yes....

[Pg 145]The Philosopher. Was he rich?

The Lady. He starved to death.

The Philosopher. Why?

The Lady. Because every one said that his invention was very wonderful, but not of the slightest use to anybody.... Yes, it’s true.

The Philosopher. That the results of thinking do not provide the motive for thinking?

The Lady. Yes.

The Philosopher. Then what is the motive for thinking?

The Lady. Just—curiosity, I suppose!

The Philosopher. Disinterested curiosity?

The Lady. Yes.

The Philosopher. Then in the interests of scientific truth we should cultivate disinterested curiosity?

The Lady. Doubtless.

The Philosopher. How would you go about doing so?

The Lady. I don’t know.

The Philosopher. By hurriedly thrusting upon the minds of the children in your charge so great a multitude of interests as to leave them no time to wonder about anything?

The Lady. That would hardly seem to be the way to do it. But—

[Pg 146]The Philosopher. When Newton looked at his famous apple, was there anyone there who said, “Now, Newton, look at this apple. Look at this apple, I say! Consider the apple. First, it is round. Second, it is red. Third, it is sweet. This is the Truth about apples. Now let me see if you have grasped what I have told you. What are the three leading facts about apples? What! Don’t you remember? Shame on you! I fear I will have to report you to the mayor!”—did anything like that happen?

The Lady. Newton was not a child.

The Philosopher. You should have talked to Newton’s family about him. That is just what they said he was! I will admit that if you left children free to wonder about things instead of forcing the traditional aspects of those things upon their attention, they might not all become great scientists. But are you a great archaeologist?

The Lady. No!

The Philosopher. Did you ever go on a personally conducted tour of the ruins of Rome, and have the things you were to see and think pointed out to you by a guide?

The Lady. Yes, and I hated it!

The Philosopher. You are not a great archaeologist[Pg 147] and you never expect to be one, and yet you thought you could get more out of those ruins yourself than with the assistance of that pesky guide. You preferred to be free—to see or not to see, to wonder and ponder and look again or pass by. And don’t you think the children in your charge might enjoy their trip a little more if they didn’t have to listen to the mechanically unctuous clatter of a guide?

The Lady. If one could only be sure they wouldn’t just waste their time!

The Philosopher. Madam, are you quite sure that you, as a teacher, are not wasting your time?

The Lady. You make me wonder whether that may not be possible. But sheer idleness—

The Philosopher. Was Newton busy when he lay down under that tree? Did he have an appointment with the apple? Did he say he would give it ten minutes, and come again next day if it seemed worth while? What is disinterested curiosity, in plain English?

The Lady. Idle curiosity—I fear.

The Philosopher. I fear you are right. Then you would say that the way to approach Truth, in school and out, is to cultivate idle curiosity?

[Pg 148]The Lady. I did not intend to say anything of the kind. But you compel me to say it.

The Philosopher. I compel you? Deny it if you wish!

The Lady. I thought you were going to answer my questions, and you have been making me answer yours!

The Philosopher. That is also an ancient habit of our profession. But since you have now arrived, of your own free will, at an inescapable if uncomfortable conclusion, you can now have no further need for my services, and I bid you all good day!