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The most familiar facts are often hardest to understand. This is described by Ward as “the illusion of the near.” Because of nearness we get no perspective; because of continual presence we become used to one view and fail to perceive others.

To the consideration of new facts we come with comparatively open minds, impressed by each item and its relation to the rest; but facts long known are supposed to be understood, and we resent the slight offered to our intelligence in the proposal to reconsider. Yet the most revolutionary discoveries have been made among precisely the most familiar facts; as in the nature and use of steam, or the endless potentialities of coal tar.

We had, and used, and supposed we knew, our own bodies, through long centuries of living and dying, yet our late-learned physiology was able to show us facts most vitally important which we had never dreamed of. Social phenomena have been going on about us since we began to be human; they are as familiar as physical or physiological phenomena, but even less understood. Yet the interaction of social forces and social conditions form increasingly prominent factors in human life.