AND now, armed with these methods of procedure, we stand face to face with nature. What shall we ask her? Prudens questio dimidium scientiæ: to know what to ask is half of every science.
You must ask for laws,—or, to use a Platonic term, forms. In every process there is matter and there is form: the matter being the seat of the process or operation, and the form its method or law. “Though in nature nothing really exists besides individual bodies, performing pure individual acts, according to a fixed law, yet in philosophy the very law, and the investigation, discovery, and explanation of it, is the foundation as well of knowledge as of operation. And it is this law, with its clauses, that I mean when I speak of Forms.”[55] Not so much what a “thing” is, but how it behaves;—that is the question. And what is more, if you will examine your conception of a “thing,” you will see that it is really a conception of how the “thing” behaves; every What is at last a How. Every “thing” is a machine, whose essence or meaning is to be found not by a mere description of its parts, but by an account of how it operates. “How does it work?” asks the boy before a machine; see to it that you ask the same question of nature.
For observe, if you know how a thing works, you are on the way to managing and controlling it. Indeed, a Form can be defined as those elements in a process which must be known before the process can be controlled. Here we see the meaning of science; it is an effort to discover the laws which must be known in order “that the mind may exercise her power over the nature of things.”[56] Science is the formulation of control; knowledge is power. The object of science is not merely to know, but to rebuild; every science longs to be an art. The quest for knowledge, then, is not a matter of curiosity, it is a fight for power. We “put nature on the rack and compel her to bear witness” against herself. Where this conception reigns, logic-chopping is out of court. “The end of our new logic is to find not arguments but arts; ... not probable reasons but plans and designs of works; ... to overcome not an adversary in argument but nature in action.”[57]
But there is logic-chopping in other things than logic. All strife of men with men, of group with group, if it leaves no result beyond the victory and passing supremacy of the individual or group, is logic-chopping. Such victories pass from side to side, and cancel themselves into final nullity. Real achievement is victory, not over other men but with them. “It will not be amiss to distinguish the three kinds, and as it were grades, of ambition in mankind. The first is of those who desire to extend their own power in their native country; which kind is vulgar and degenerate. The second is of those who labor to extend the power of their country and its dominion among men. This certainly has more dignity, though not less covetousness. But if a man endeavor to establish and extend the power and dominion of the human race over the universe, his ambition is without doubt both a more wholesome thing and a more noble than the other two. The empire of man over things depends wholly on the arts and sciences. For we cannot command nature except by obeying her.”[58]
V
The Socialization of Science
Natura non vincitur nisi parendo. “I accept the universe,” says Margaret Fuller. “Gad! you’d better!” says Carlyle. I accept it, says Bacon, but only as raw material. We will listen to nature, but only that we may learn what language she understands. We stoop to conquer.
There is nothing impossible but thinking makes it so. “By far the greatest obstacle to the progress of science and the undertaking of new tasks ... is found in this, that men despair and think things impossible.... If therefore any one believes or promises more, they think this comes of an ungoverned and unripened mind.”[59] There is nothing that we may not do, if we will, but we must will; and must will the means as well as the end. Would we have an empire of man over nature? Very well: organize the arts and sciences.
“Consider what may be expected from men abounding in leisure, and from association of labors, and from successions of ages; the rather because it is not a way over which only one man can pass at a time (as is the case with that of reasoning), but within which the labors and industries of men (especially as regards the collecting of experience) may with the best effort be distributed and then combined. For then only will men begin to know their strength when instead of great numbers doing all the same things, one shall take charge of one thing and another of another.”[60] There should be more coöperation, less chaotic rivalry, in research. And the coöperation should be international; the various universities of the world, so far as they engage in research, should be like the different buildings of a great manufacturing plant, each with its own particular specialty and quest. Is it not remarkable how “little sympathy and correspondence exists between colleges and universities, as well throughout Europe as in the same state and kingdom?”[61] Why cannot all the research in the world be coördinated into one unified advance? Perhaps the truth-seekers would be unwilling; but has that been shown? And is the number of willing coöperators too small to warrant further effort? How can we know without the trial? Grant that the genius would balk at some external central direction; but research after all is seldom a matter of genius. “The course I propose ... is such as leaves but little to the acuteness and strength of wits, but places all wits and understandings nearly on the level.”[62] Let scope and freedom be amply provided for the genius; it is the work of following up the aperçus of genius that most sorely needs coördination. Organization of research means really the liberation of genius: liberation from the halting necessities of mechanical repetition in experiment. Nor is coördination regimentation; let each man follow his hobby to whatever university has been assigned to the investigation of that particular item. Liberty is futility unless it is organized.
It is a plan, you see, for the socialization of science. It is a large and royal vision; to make it real involves “indeed opera basilica,” it is the business of a king, “towards which the endeavors of one man can be but as the sign on a cross-road, which points out the way but cannot tread it.”[63] It will need such legislative appropriations as are now granted only to the business of competitive destruction on land and sea. “As the secretaries and spies of princes and states bring in bills for intelligence, so you must allow the spies and intelligencers of nature to bring in their bills if you would not be ignorant of many things worthy to be known. And if Alexander placed so large a treasure at Aristotle’s command for the support of hunters, fowlers, fishers and the like, in much more need do they stand of this beneficence who unfold the labyrinths of nature.”[64]