The Chief Impulse in Discovery.
In “The Hazard of New Fortunes” Mr. W. D. Howells depicts a man of force who, without education, becomes rich. He has little patience with poor men, who, he says, “don’t get what they want because they don’t want it bad enough.” The rough old Westerner, Dryfoos, was sound in his view. Success in discovery as in money-making is as much a matter of passion as of intelligence, says Mr. O. F. Cook:—
“The first and most essential preliminary for a successful investigation is an interest in the question, and any method which tends to diminish or relax interest is false and futile. Diligence in learning the facts of a science is a distinctly unfavorable symptom in a would-be investigator when unaccompanied by a vital constructive interest. That a student hoards facts does not mean that he will build anything with them. Intellectual misers are common, and are quite as unprofitable as the monetary variety. A scientific specialist may have vast knowledge and life-long experience, and yet may never entertain an original idea or make a new rift in the wall of the unknown which baffled his predecessors. Indeed, such men commonly resent a readjustment of the bounds of knowledge as an interference with their vested capital of erudition.
“Investigation is a sentiment, an instinct, a habit of mind; it is man’s effort at knowing and enjoying the universe. The productive investigator desires knowledge for a purpose; he may not be eager for knowledge in general, nor for new knowledge in particular. He values details for their bearing on the problem he hopes to solve. He can gather and sift them to advantage only in the light of a radiant interest, and his ability to utilize them for correct information depends on the delicacy of his perception and the strength of his mental grasp. The investigator, like the athlete, must first be born; he can not be made to order, but his training determines the degree of excellence to which he can attain. No amount of training can remove organic defects, but bad training may be worse than none in lessening the attainment of the most capable. That education is false and injurious which puts the matter first and retards or prevents the development of constructive mental ability, a power not peculiar to the investigator, but in him reaching the greatest scope and freedom of action.”