The following "Query Table," from the same volume, may be found useful in the same direction. It is simpler and less complicated than the system given above. It has well been called a "Magic Key of Knowledge," and it opens many a mental door:
QUERY TABLE
Ask yourself the following questions regarding the thing under consideration. It will draw out many bits of information and associated knowledge in your mind:
- I. What?
- II. Whence?
- III. Where?
- IV. When?
- V. How?
- VI. Why?
- VII. Whither?
Remember, always, that the greater the number of associated and related ideas that you are able to group around a concept, the richer, fuller and truer does that concept become to you. The concept is a general idea, and its attributes of "generality" depend upon the associated facts and ideas related to it. The greater the number of the view points from which a concept may be examined and considered, the greater is the degree of knowledge concerning that concept. It is held that everything in the universe is related to every other thing, so that if we knew all the associated ideas and facts concerning a thing, we would not only know that particular thing absolutely, but would, besides, know everything in the universe. The chain of Association is infinite in extent.
CHAPTER X.
GENERALIZATION
We have seen that Sensation is translated or interpreted into Perception; and that from the Percepts so created we may "draw off," or separate, various qualities, attributes and properties by the analytical process we call Abstraction. Abstraction, we have seen, thus constitutes the first step in the process of what is called Understanding. The second step is called Generalization or Conception.