dulum may be calculated exclusively in terms of its length and the acceleration due to gravity. The monkey's higher proficiency and the formula alike represent a knowledge that is free in the sense that it is contained in terms that require no single fixed context in immediacy. The knowledge is valid wherever these essential terms are present; and calculations may be based upon these essential terms, while attendant circumstances vary ad infinitum. Such knowledge is said to be general or universal. There is another element of freedom, however, which so far has not been attributed to the monkey's knowledge, but which is evidently present in that of the physicist. The former has a practical ability to deal with a pendulum when he sees it. The latter, on the other hand, knows about a pendulum whether one be present or not. His knowledge is so retained as always to be available, even though it be not always applicable. His knowledge is not merely skill in treating a situation, but the possession of resources which he may employ at whatever time, and in whatever manner, may suit his interests. Knowing what he does about the pendulum, he may act from the idea of such a contrivance, and with the aid of it construct some more complex mechanism. His formulas are his instruments, which he may use on any occasion. Suppose that a situation with factors a, b, and c requires factor d in order to become M, as desired. Such a situation might easily be hopeless for an organism reacting directly to the stimulus abc, and yet be easily met by a free knowledge of d. One who knows that l, m, and n will produce d, may by these means provide the missing factor, complete the sum of required conditions, abcd, and so obtain the end M. Such indirection might be used to obtain any required factor of the end, or of any near or remote means to the end. There is, in fact, no limit to the complexity of action made possible upon this basis; for since it is available in idea, the whole range of such knowledge may be brought to bear upon any individual problem. § 44. But knowledge of this free type becomes at the same time social or institutional. It conSkill as Social. sists no longer in a skilful adaptation of the individual organism, but in a system of terms common to all intelligence, and preserved in those books and other monuments which serve as the articulate memory of the race. A knowledge that is social must be composed of unequivocal conceptions and fixed symbols. The mathe matical laws of the exact sciences represent the most successful attainment of this end so far as form is concerned. Furthermore, the amount of knowledge may now be increased from generation to generation through the service of those who make a vocation of its pursuit. Natural science is thus a cumulative racial proficiency, which any individual may bring to bear upon any emergency of his life. Science for tion and Con struction. § 45. Such proficiency as science affords is in every case the anticipation of experience. This has a twofold value for mankind, that Accommoda- of accommodation, and that of construction. Primitively, where mere survival is the function of the organism as a whole, the value of accommodation is relatively fundamental. The knowledge of what may be expected enables the organism to save itself by means of its own counter-arrangement of natural processes. Construction is here for the sake of accommodation. But with the growth of civilization construction becomes a positive interest, and man tends to save himself for definite ends. Accommodation comes to take place for the sake of construction. Science then supplies the individual with the ways and means wherewith to execute life purposes which themselves tend to assume an absolute value that cannot be justified merely on the ground of science. Fundamental Conceptions § 46. If natural science be animated by any special cognitive interest, this motive should apMethod and pear in the development of its method and fundamental conceptions. If that interest has been truly defined, it should now enable us to understand the progressive and permanent in scientific investigation as directly related to it. For the aim of any discipline exercises a gradual selection from among possible methods, and gives to its laws their determinate and final form. Method. The descriptive method is at the present day fully established. A leading moral of the history of science is the superior usefulness of an exact account of the workings of nature to an explanation in terms of some qualitative potency. Explanation has been postponed by enlightened science until after a more careful observation of actual processes shall have been made; and at length it has been admitted that there is no need of any explanation but perfect description. Now the practical use of science defined above, requires no knowledge beyond the actual order of events. For such a purpose sufficient reason signifies only suffi cient conditions. All other considerations are irrelevant, and it is proper to ignore them. Such has actually been the fate of the so-called metaphysical solution of special problems of nature. The case of Kepler is the classic instance. This great scientist supplemented his laws of planetary motion with the following speculation concerning the agencies at work: "We must suppose one of two things: either that the moving spirits, in proportion as they are more removed from the sun, are more feeble; or that there is one moving spirit in the centre of all the orbits, namely, in the sun, which urges each body the more vehemently in proportion as it is nearer; but in more distant spaces languishes in consequence of the remoteness and attenuation of its virtue." The following passage from Hegel affords an interesting analogy: "The moon is the waterless crystal which seeks to complete itself by means of our sea, to quench the thirst of its arid rigidity, and therefore produces ebb and flow." 993 No scientist has ever sought to refute either of these theories. They have merely been neglected. 2 Whewell: History of the Inductive Sciences, Vol. I, Quoted from Kepler: Mysterium Cosmographicum. p. 289. 3 Quoted by Sidgwick in his Philosophy, its Scope and Relations, p. 89. |