An Introduction to the History of Science

by Walter Libby

When Galton questioned persons whom he met in general society he found "an entirely different disposition to prevail. Many men and a yet larger number of women, and many boys and girls, declared that they habitually saw mental imagery, and that it was perfectly distinct to them and full of color." The evidence of this difference between the psychology of the average distinguished scientist and the average member of general society was greatly strengthened upon cross-examination. Galton attributed the difference to the scientist's "habits of highly generalized and abstract thought, especially when the steps of reasoning are carried on by words [employed] as symbols."

It is only by the use of words as symbols that scientific thought is possible. It is through coöperation in work that mankind has imposed its will upon the creation, and coöperation could not have been carried far without the development of language as a means of communication. Were it not for the help of words we should be dependent, like the lower animals, on the fleeting images of things. We should be bound to the world of sense and not have range in the world of ideas. Words are a free medium for thought, for the very reason that they are capable of shifting their meaning and taking on greater extension or intension. For example, we may say that the apple falls because it is heavy, or we may substitute synonymous phraseology that helps us to view the falling apple in its universal aspects. The mind acquires through language a field of activity independent of the objective world. We have seen in an earlier chapter that geometry developed as a science is becoming gradually weaned from the art of surveying. Triangles and rectangles cease to suggest meadows, or vineyards, or any definite imagery of that sort, and are discussed in their abstract relationship. Science demands the conceptual rather than the merely sensory. The invisible real world of atoms and corpuscles has its beginning in the reason, the word. To formulate new truths in the world of ideas is the prerogative of minds gifted with exceptional reason.

To be sure, language itself may be regarded as imagery. Some persons visualize every word spoken as though it were seen on the printed page; others cannot recall a literary passage without motor imagery of the speech organs or even incipient speech; while others again experience motor imagery of the writing hand. With many, in all forms of word-consciousness, the auditory image is predominant. In the sense of being accompanied by imagery all thinking is imaginative. But it is the use of words that permits us to escape most completely from the more primitive forms of intelligence. So directly does the printed word convey its meaning to the trained mind that to regard it as so much black on white rather than as a symbol is a rare and rather upsetting mental experience. Words differ among themselves in their power to suggest images of the thing symbolized. The word "existence" is less image-producing than "flower," and "flower" than "red rose." It is characteristic of the language of science to substitute the abstract or general expression for the concrete and picturesque.

When, therefore, we are told that the imagination has been at the bottom of all great scientific discoveries, that the discovery of law is the peculiar function of the creative imagination, and that all great scientists have, in a certain sense, been great artists, we are confronted with a paradox. In what department of thought is imagination more strictly subordinated than in science? Genetic psychology attempts to trace the development of mind as a means of adjustment. It examines the instincts that serve so wonderfully the survival of various species of insects. It studies the more easily modified instinct of birds, and notes their ability to make intelligent choice on the basis of experience. Does the bird's ability to recognize imply the possession of memory, or imagery? Increased intelligence assures perpetuation of other species in novel and unforeseen conditions. The more tenacious the memory, the richer the supply of images, the greater the powers of adaptation and survival. We know something concerning the motor memory of rodents and horses, and its biological value. The child inherits less definitely organized instincts, but greater plasticity, than the lower animals. Its mental life is a chaos of images. It is the work of education to discipline as well as to nourish the senses, to teach form as well as color, to impart the clarifying sense of number, weight, and measurement, to help distinguish between the dream and the reality, to teach language, the treasure-house of our traditional wisdom, and logic, so closely related to the right use of language. The facts of abnormal, as well as those of animal and child psychology, prove that the subordination of the imagination and fancy to reason and understanding is an essential factor in intellectual development.

No one, of course, will claim that the mental activity of the scientific discoverer is wholly unlike that of any other class of man; but it leads only to confusion to seek to identify processes so unlike as scientific generalization and artistic production. The artist's purpose is the conveyance of a mood. The author of Macbeth employs every device to impart to the auditor the sense of blood-guiltiness; every lurid scene, every somber phrase, serves to enhance the sentiment. A certain picture by Dürer, a certain poem of Browning's, convey in every detail the feeling of dauntless resolution. Again, a landscape painter, recognizing that his satisfaction in a certain scene depends upon a stretch of blue water with a yellow strand and old-gold foliage, proceeds to rearrange nature for the benefit of the mood he desires to enliven and perpetuate. It is surely a far cry from the attitude of these artists manipulating impressions in order to impart to others an individual mood, to that of the scientific discoverer formulating a law valid for all intellects.

In the psychology of the present day there is much that is reminiscent of the biological psychology of Aristotle. From the primitive or nutrient soul which has to do with the vital functions of growth and reproduction, is developed the sentient soul, concerned with movement and sensibility. Finally emerges the intellectual and reasoning soul. These three parts are not mutually exclusive, but the lower foreshadow the higher and are subsumed in it. Aristotle, however, interpreted the lower by the higher and not vice versa. It is no compliment to the scientific discoverer to say that his loftiest intellectual achievement is closely akin to fiction, or is the result of a mere brooding on facts, or is accompanied by emotional excitement, or is the work of blind instinct.

It will be found that scientific discovery, while predominantly an intellectual process, varies with the nature of the phenomena of the different sciences and the individual mental differences of the discoverers. As stated at the outset the psychology of scientific discovery must be the subject of prolonged investigation, but some data are already available. One great mathematician, Poincaré, attributes his discoveries to intuition. The essential idea comes with a sense of illumination. It is characterized by suddenness, conciseness, and immediate certainty. It may come unheralded, as he is crossing the street, walking on the cliffs, or stepping into a carriage. There may have intervened a considerable period of time free from conscious effort on the special question involved in the discovery. Poincaré is inclined to account for these sudden solutions of theoretical difficulties on the assumption of long periods of previous unconscious work.

There are many such records from men of genius. At the moment the inventor obtains the solution of his problem his mind may seem to be least engaged with it. The long-sought-for idea comes like an inspiration, something freely imparted rather than voluntarily acquired. No mental process is more worthy to command respect; but it may not lie beyond the possibility of explanation. Like ethical insight, or spiritual illumination, the scientific idea comes to those who have striven for it. The door may open after we have ceased to knock, or the response come when we have forgotten that we sent in a call; but the discovery comes only after conscious work. The whole history of science shows that it is to the worker that the inspiration comes, and that new ideas develop from old ideas.

It may detract still further from the mysteriousness of the discovery-process to add that the illuminating idea may come in the midst of conscious work, and that then also it may appear as a sudden gift rather than the legitimate outcome of mental effort. The spontaneity of wit may afford another clue to the mystery of scientific discovery. The utterer of a witticism is frequently as much surprised by it as the auditors, probably because the idea comes as verbal imagery, and the full realization of their significance is grasped only with the actual utterance of the words. The fact that to the scientific discoverer the solution of his problem arrives at the moment when it is least sought is analogous to the common experience that the effort to recall a name may inhibit the natural association.

The tendency to emphasize unduly the rôle played by the scientific imagination springs probably from the misconception that the imagination is a psychological superfluity, one of the luxuries of the mental life, which should not be withheld from those who deserve the best. The view lingers with regard to the æsthetic imagination. James could not understand the biological function of the æsthetic faculty. On the alleged uselessness of this phase of the human mind A. J. Balfour has recently based an argument for the immortality of the soul. This view is strikingly at variance with that which inclines to identify it with that mental process which creates scientific theories and thus paves the way for the adjustment of posterity to earthly conditions.