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HOW WE THINK

exceptional in any particular case that he is called upon to treat. If he knows the laws of circulation, digestion, and respiration, he can deduce the conditions that should normally be found in a given case. These considerations give a base line from which the deviations and abnormalities of a particular case may be measured. In this way, the nature of the problem at hand is located and defined. Attention is not wasted upon features which though conspicuous have nothing to do with the case; it is concentrated upon just those traits which are out of the way and hence require explanation. A question well put is half answered; i.e. a difficulty clearly apprehended is likely to suggest its own solution,—while a vague and miscellaneous perception of the problem leads to groping and fumbling. Deductive systems are necessary in order to put the question in a fruitful form.

"Reasoning a thing out" The control of the origin and development of hypotheses by deduction does not cease, however, with locating the problem. Ideas as they first present themselves are inchoate and incomplete. Deduction is their elaboration into fullness and completeness of meaning (see p. 76). The phenomena which the physician isolates from the total mass of facts that exist in front of him suggest, we will say, typhoid fever. Now this conception of typhoid fever is one that is capable of development. If there is typhoid, wherever there is typhoid, there are certain results, certain characteristic symptoms. By going over mentally the full bearing of the concept of typhoid, the scientist is instructed as to further phenomena to be found. Its development gives him an instrument of inquiry, of observation and experimentation. He can go to work deliberately to see whether