All insight into meaning effects generalization
(iv) Hence generalization is not a separate and single act; it is rather a constant tendency and function of the entire discussion or recitation. Every step forward toward an idea that comprehends, that explains, that unites what was isolated and therefore puzzling, generalizes. The little child generalizes as truly as the adolescent or adult, even though he does not arrive at the same generalities. If he is studying a river basin, his knowledge is generalized in so far as the various details that he apprehends are found to be the effects of a single force, as that of water pushing downward from gravity, or are seen to be successive stages of a single history of formation. Even if there were acquaintance with only one river, knowledge of it under such conditions would be generalized knowledge.
Insight into meaning requires formulation
The factor of formulation, of conscious stating, involved in generalization, should also be a constant function, not a single formal act. Definition means essentially the growth of a meaning out of vagueness into definiteness. Such final verbal definition as takes place should be only the culmination of a steady growth in distinctness. In the reaction against ready-made verbal definitions and rules, the pendulum should never swing to the opposite extreme, that of neglecting to summarize the net meaning that emerges from dealing with particular facts. Only as general summaries are made from time to time does the mind reach a conclusion or a resting place; and only as conclusions are reached is there an intellectual deposit available in future understanding.
Generalization means capacity for application to the new
III. As the last words indicate, application and generalization lie close together. Mechanical skill for further use may be achieved without any explicit recognition of a principle; nay, in routine and narrow technical matters, conscious formulation may be a hindrance. But without recognition of a principle, without generalization, the power gained cannot be transferred to new and dissimilar matters. The inherent significance of generalization is that it frees a meaning from local restrictions; rather, generalization is meaning so freed; it is meaning emancipated from accidental features so as to be available in new cases. The surest test for detecting a spurious generalization (a statement general in verbal form but not accompanied by discernment of meaning), is the failure of the so-called principle spontaneously to extend itself. The essence of the general is application. (Ante, p. 29.)
Fossilized versus flexible principles
The true purpose of exercises that apply rules and principles is, then, not so much to drive or drill them in as to give adequate insight into an idea or principle. To treat application as a separate final step is disastrous. In every judgment some meaning is employed as a basis for estimating and interpreting some fact; by this application the meaning is itself enlarged and tested. When the general meaning is regarded as complete in itself, application is treated as an external, non-intellectual use to which, for practical purposes alone, it is advisable to put the meaning. The principle is one self-contained thing; its use is another and independent thing. When this divorce occurs, principles become fossilized and rigid; they lose their inherent vitality, their self-impelling power.
Self-application a mark of genuine principles
A true conception is a moving idea, and it seeks outlet, or application to the interpretation of particulars and the guidance of action, as naturally as water runs downhill. In fine, just as reflective thought requires particular facts of observation and events of action for its origination, so it also requires particular facts and deeds for its own consummation. "Glittering generalities" are inert because they are spurious. Application is as much an intrinsic part of genuine reflective inquiry as is alert observation or reasoning itself. Truly general principles tend to apply themselves. The teacher needs, indeed, to supply conditions favorable to use and exercise; but something is wrong when artificial tasks have arbitrarily to be invented in order to secure application for principles.