It is true there are cases in which, with acknowledged propriety, we generalize from a single instance to a multitude of instances.
But though we have always a propensity to generalize from unvarying experience, we are not always warranted in doing so.
The same may be said of those who generalize empirically from the people of their own country to the people of other countries, as if human beings felt, judged, and acted everywhere in the same manner.
If, therefore, I seem to generalize unduly, I hope that my deficiencies may be charged against the exigencies of the occasion.
It is dangerous togeneralize in racial characteristics, but no one will dispute a tendency to brood as a characteristic of the Slav.
The spaciousness of great imagination is seldom in it, and it lacks those grand and simple conceptions whichgeneralize upon the human race.
We have, by observation and desultory reading, picked up our information by the wayside, and endeavored to arrange, generalize and digest it for ourselves.
How far is it possible and legitimate to extend or generalize the results reached to apply to all propositions of facts?
Yet (and this is the significant point) it does not simply abstract this common element, and consciously generalize it over against its own differences.
In strict logic Kant contradicts himself when he says that we are to generalize the end of desire, so as to see whether it could become a universal law.
Summary of Animal Learning Let us take account of stock at this point, before passing to human learning, and attempt to generalize what we have observed in animals of the process of learning.
As if it were possible to generalizethings generically different.
An artist may generalize the trunk of a tree, where he only loses lines of bark, and do us a kindness; but he must not generalize the details of a champaign, in which there is a history of creation.
It is just as impossible to generalize granite and slate, as it is to generalize a man and a cow.
Many artists who appear to generalize rudely or rashly are perhaps faithfully endeavoring to render the appearance which nature bears to sight of limited range.
At times I do generalize on the attitudes of both black and white servicemen and the black and white communities at large as well.
Lawyers begin to generalize and to frame conscious theories in the later part of the stage of the strict law.
Furthermore, there have been few attempts to generalize and to group examples of typical phenomena in such a manner as to enable a general reader to see the complex fabric as a whole.
The parables of the New Testament, after critics have done their utmost to generalize and classify, must in the end be accounted sui generis, and treated apart from all others.
While it is right to generalize the lesson, as we have already done, it is our duty also to notice the special form of the widow's prayer and the Lord's promise: in both cases it is vengeance against an adversary.
It may be presumptuous for an individual to generalize about civilizations of which he knows so little.
The word "civilization" must generalize what has been and what is, as nearly as the past and present can be embodied in language.
He was Rodney, sui generis, and it had never occurred to her either to generalize from him to other men, or to explain any of the facts she had noted about him, on the mere ground of his masculinity.
He'd generalize fast enough about the world at large, but it would always be hard for him to include her and himself in his generalizations.
Does the native novelist try to generalize the nation?
One might generalize what Keats says of Burns, "We can see horribly clear in the work of such a man his whole life, as if we were God's spies.
Yet, were it not unsafe to generalize when our data apply to only one country, we should venture the assertion that the dualism of the poet's desires is not an insular characteristic, but is typical of his race in every country.
Search after abstract and speculative truths, principles and axioms in science, "everything that tends to generalize ideas is outside of her competence.
They are competent to discuss details and to deal with particulars, but become hopelessly lost when they attempt to generalize or deal with universals.
Under the head of Abstraction we have seen that through Abstraction we may Generalize the various species into the various families, and thus, in turn, into the various sub-families.
It is necessary for us to form a variety of clear Concepts or ideas of facts, objects, persons and things, before we may hope to generalize from these particulars.
It requires much judgment and skill to generalize correctly, because everything depends upon the number and character of the instances about which we reason.
And, likewise, it proceeds togeneralize from the classification, assuming certain qualities in certain classes.
Having formed a number of lower classes, we compare them as we did individuals and generalize them into higher classes.
But, the child knowing nothing of the more limited and detailed classification begins to generalize regarding the animal.
To generalize is to draw a general law from particular cases, and to infer that what we see to be true of a few things is true of the whole genus or class to which these things belong.
All travellers do and must generalize too rapidly.
The traveller must not generalize on the spot, however true may be his apprehension--however firm his grasp, of one or more facts.
The observer must be very careful not to generalize too hastily upon the discourse addressed to him; but there are everywhere large conclusions which he cannot help making.
Because he cannot safely generalize in one way, it does not follow that there is no other way.
Generalize as to the similarity of the places in which the pupils have seen the sparrow singing, and as to the times of day in which the bird sings.
If the equipment of the school is limited, it may be necessary to dispense with the ball and ring and generalize from one experiment.
Do not attempt to generalize those interferences or to plan for them a priori.
They generalize these classes, and render them impersonal, and so constitute the classes into social pets.
If wegeneralize this, it means that All-of-us ought to guarantee rights to each of us.
It is when works of art are profoundly individual that we generalize their meaning.
Though it deals with the conscious life of his fellow citizens, it is all too often distressingly opaque, because the man who is trying to generalize has practically no supervision of the way his data are collected.
They have always seemed more realistic, even when they seemed alarming, because all they had to do was to generalize the experience that nobody could escape.
It is possible to generalize tentatively and with a decent humility about comparative differences within the same category of education and experience.
But as rational beings it is worse than shallow to generalize at all about comparative behavior until there is a measurable similarity between the environments to which behavior is a response.
That is one reason why it is so dangerous togeneralize about human nature.
