The Evolution of Science

Abstract

Man is governed by the struggle for self-preservation: his whole activity is in its service and only achieves, with richer resources, what the reflexes accomplish in the lower organisms under simpler conditions of life. Every recollection, every idea, every piece of knowledge has a value originally only in so far as it directly furthers man in the direction indicated. The life of ideas reflects the actual facts, supplements partially observed facts according to the principle of similarity (by association), and makes it easier for man to place himself in more favorable relations to them. The more extensive the field of facts and the more truly that field reflected, the more exactly ideas are adapted to the facts, the more effectively helpful are those ideas in life. But only what most powerfully concerns the will, the interest (that is the useful), or what stands out strikingly from the frame of daily life (the new, the wonderful) will initially attract attention. Only gradually, from this point, are ideas able to adapt themselves to broader fields of facts. Here the continuous widening of experience, often resulting from chance circumstances, plays an essential part.