with
them_; and attention is also requested to the _impossibility_ of
making a _wise_ decision (except by chance) unless one understands
_all_ the factors, takes _all_ into consideration, and then combines
them _all_, assigning to each its proper weight. From one point of
view, every problem in life is like a problem in mathematics; for
if all the factors are added, subtracted, multiplied, and divided
correctly (that is, if they are combined correctly), and if correct
values are assigned to them, the correct answer is inevitable. In
most of the problems of life, however, certainly in the problems
of strategy, we do not know all of the factors, and cannot assign
them their exactly proper weights; and therefore we rarely get
the absolutely correct answer. The best that any man can do is to
estimate the factors as accurately as he can, judge as correctly
as he can their interaction on each other, and then make his own
conclusion or decision.

When a man can do this well in the ordinary affairs of life, he
is said to be "a man of good judgment"; when he can do it well
in a certain line of work--say investments in real estate--he is
said to have good judgment in real estate. The use of the word
"judgment" here is excellent, because it expresses the act of a
judge, who listens patiently to all the evidence in a case and
then gives his decision. And the act of the judge, and the act
of any man in coming carefully to any decision, consist mainly
in estimating the relative values of all the factors, and their
relations to each other ("sizing them up" is the expressive slang),
and then perceiving with more or less correctness what the answer
is. Some men do not have good judgment; some men highly educated,
brilliant, and well-meaning, seem never to get quite the correct
answer to any problem in life. They are said to be unsuccessful
and no one knows why. Perhaps they lack that instinctive sense
of proportion that some men have--a sense as real as an "ear for
music"; or perhaps they lack a willingness or a capability to think
about a situation with sufficient intentness to force a clear picture
of the situation with all its various features upon the mental
retina.

The ability to make a mental picture, be it of a machine, of any
group of material objects, such as the various units of a fleet
organized as such, or of any other situation, varies with different
men; but like every other kind of ability, it can be strengthened
by