Fact and Fable in Psychology

by Joseph Jastrow

I

The origin of human endowment lies hidden in an obscure and unrecorded past; the fact of development, of the gradual unfoldment of capacity, stands out conspicuously throughout the historical record of human achievement, and is equally recognizable in the extensive remains of prehistoric humanity. The story of the mental development of man is constructed from travelers' accounts of primitive peoples, from the records of early civilizations, from the sequences of thought and belief that are considered in the history of culture, from the study of the intellectual growth of childhood, from the observation of the less progressive elements of current civilizations. The present essay attempts to portray the status of one form of intellectual process, or of mental attitude, which characterizes undeveloped stages of human thought, and has played an important and variable part in the drama of mental evolution. I propose to present the "Natural History of Analogy,"—meaning thereby the treatment, according to the methods of natural science, of a type of mental action, interesting at once as a psychological process, and again from its practical results as a factor in the anthropological history of the race.

An analogy is a type of reasoning, and as such is referred to the logician for more precise definition. His briefest explanation of the term may be stated as the inference of a further degree of resemblance from an observed degree of resemblance; the argument that because the Earth and Mars agree in the common possession of a solid crust, an atmosphere, presence of water, changes of season, the possibilities of rain and snow, and other observed qualities, they will also agree in the further respect of being inhabited. This may serve as an exemplar of the analogical argument in its purest and most developed form; but in the survey of the varieties and distribution of this natural product of rationality, it will be necessary to include many forms of thought diverging more or less from, though always retaining, a recognizable relation to this type. The analogical inference, indeed, goes back to an inarticulate form, in which it merges into a feeling rather than an argument, a susceptibility to an influence supported by undefined plausibility, rather than a conclusion from tangible evidence. But however lacking in definiteness or formulation, however unconsciously realized and barely expressible, the tendency or disposition to believe is communicated to others and becomes an influential factor in the ultimate fixation of belief and in the guidance of conduct. Logically considered, analogy is always a weak argument; and becomes weaker, as the range of observed resemblance is more and more limited, as the resemblances belong to accidental, unessential traits, and as the underlying basis of the inference is removed from direct verification. Psychologically, its power to influence belief may be very strong, and when this is not the case, there still may exist a disposition to be influenced by analogical considerations, even when these are successfully resisted or suppressed. The instinctive proclivity towards the use of analogies, whether it be logical or anti-logical in effect, forms an interesting psychological trait. Logic counsels how we may think most profitably and correctly; psychology describes how we actually do think or tend to think. The logician is the gardener bent upon training certain selected flowers according to an ideal standard, and eradicating all others as weeds; while the psychologist is the botanist to whom all plants, weeds, and flowers alike are worthy objects of study, and who, indeed, traces significant resemblances between the despised weed and the choice flower.

The natural history account of analogy will consider the status in less advanced stages of human development, and the evolution of this form of thought, which scientists to-day use only with the greatest caution, and to which they at best assign but a limited and corroborative value. It will appear that analogy is dominant in primitive types of thought; that it has an important cultural history; and has left an unmistakable impress upon many beliefs of our civilization, marked as obsolete, perhaps, in the dictionary of the cultured, but current still in the parlance of average and untutored humanity.