he
question is objective rather than subjective. It is not our own
actions that call for explanation, but some fact of nature or of human
behavior. Why--with apologies to the Southern Hemisphere!--is it so
cold in January? The fact arouses our curiosity. We search the
situation for clues, and recall past information, just as in the
attempt to solve a practical problem. "Is it because there is so much
snow in January?" "But what, then, makes it snow? This clue leads us
in a circle." "Perhaps, then, it is because the sun shines so little
of the time, and never gets high in the sky, even at noon." That is a
pretty good clue; it recalls the general principle that, without a
continued supply of heat, cold is inevitable. To explain a phenomenon
is to deduce it from {472} an accepted general principle; to
understand it is to see it as an instance of the general principle.
Such understanding is very satisfactory, since it rids you of
uncertainty and sometimes from fear, and gives you a sense of power
and mastery.

4. Application.

The reasoning processes discussed up to this point have taken their
start with the particular, and have been concerned in a search for the
general principle that holds good of the given particular case.
Reasoning may also take its start at the other end, in a general
statement, and seek for particular cases belonging under this general
rule. But what can be the motive for this sort of reasoning? What is
there about a general proposition to stimulate exploration?

Several motives may be in play. First, there may be a need for
application of the general principle. Somebody whose authority you
fully accept enunciates a general proposition, and you wish to apply
it to special cases, either for seeing what practical use you can make
of it, or simply to make its meaning more real and concrete to
yourself. Your exploration here takes a different form from that thus
far described. Instead of searching a concrete situation for clues,
and your memory for general principles, you search your memory for
particular cases where the general law should apply. If all animals
are cold-blooded, excepting only birds and mammals, then fish and
frogs and lizards are cold-blooded, spiders, insects, lobsters and
worms; having drawn these inferences, your understanding of the
general proposition becomes more complete.

5. Doubt.

A general proposition may stimulate reasoning because you doubt it,
and wish to find c