[PART I]
GENERAL THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
1. The Formation of Concepts.
To the human mind, as it slowly awakens in every child, the world at first seems a chaos consisting of mere individual experiences. The only connection between them is that they follow each other consecutively. Of these experiences, all of which at first are different from one another, certain parts come to be distinguished by the fact that they are repeated more frequently, and therefore receive a special character, that of being familiar. The familiarity is due to our recalling a former similar experience; in other words, to our feeling that there is a relation between the present experience and certain former experiences. The cause of this phenomenon, which is at the basis of all mental life, is a quality common to all living things, and manifesting itself in all their functions, while appearing but rarely or accidentally in inorganic nature. It is the quality by virtue of which the oftener any process has taken place in a living organism the more easily it is repeated. Here is not yet the place to show how almost all the characteristic qualities of living beings, from the preservation of the species to the highest intellectual accomplishments, are conditioned by this special peculiarity. Suffice it to say that because of this quality all those processes which are repeated frequently in any given living organism, assume spontaneously, that is, from physiologic reasons, a character distinguishing them essentially from those which appear only in isolated instances, or sporadically.
If a living being is equipped with consciousness and thought, like man, then the conscious recollections of such uniform experiences form the enduring or permanent part in the sum-total of his experiences. Each time a complex event, like the change of seasons, for example, which we know from experience repeats itself—each time a part of such an event reaches our consciousness, we are prepared also for the other parts that experience teaches are connected with it. This makes it possible for us to foresee future events. What significance the foreseeing of future events has for the preservation and the development of the individual as well as the species can only be indicated here. To give one instance, it is our ability to foretell the coming of winter with the impossibility of obtaining food directly during the winter that causes us to refrain from at once using up all the food we have and to preserve it for the day of need. The ability to foretell, therefore, becomes the foundation of the whole structure of economic life.
2. Science.
The prophecy of future events based upon the knowledge of the details of recurring events is called science in its most general sense. Here, as in most cases in which language became fixed long before men had a clear knowledge of the things designated, the name of the thing is easily associated with false ideas arising either from errors that had been overcome or from other, still more accidental, causes. Thus, the mere knowledge of past events is also called science without any thought of its use for prophesying future events. Yet a moment's reflection teaches that mere knowledge of the past which is not meant to, or cannot, serve as a basis for shaping the future is utterly aimless knowledge, and must take its place with other aimless activities called play. There are all sorts of plays requiring great acumen and patient application, as for example the game of chess; and no one has the right to prevent any individual from pursuing such games. But the player for his part must not demand special regard for his activity. By using his energies for his personal pleasure and not for a social purpose, that is, for a general human purpose, he loses every claim to the social encouragement of his activity, and must be content if only his individual rights are respected; and that, too, only so long as the social interests do not suffer by it.
3. The Aim of Science.
These views are deliberately opposed to a very widespread idea that science should be cultivated "for its own sake," and not for the sake of the benefits it actually brings or may be made to bring. We reply that there is nothing at all which is done merely "for its own sake." Everything, without exception, is done for human purposes. These purposes range from momentary personal satisfaction to the most comprehensive social services involving disregard of one's own person. But in all our actions we never get beyond the sphere of the human. If, therefore, the phrase "for its own sake" means anything, it means that science should be followed for the sake of the immediate pleasure it affords, that is to say, as play (as we have just characterized it), and in the "for-its-own-sake" demand there is hidden a misunderstood idealism, which, on closer inspection, resolves itself into its very opposite, the degradation of science.