Science and method / by Henri Poincaré ; translated by Francis Maitland ; with a preface by Bertrand Russell.

  • Henri Poincaré
Date:
[1914?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Science and method / by Henri Poincaré ; translated by Francis Maitland ; with a preface by Bertrand Russell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    not true, but it is symbolical, so we will treat it as if it were true. Well, we must suppose that before Newton’s day many men had seen apples fall, but none had been able to draw any conclusion. Facts would be barren if there were not minds capable of selecting between them and distinguishing those which have something hidden behind them and recognizing what is hidden—minds which, behind the bare fact, can detect the soul of the fact. In mathematics we do exactly the same thing. Of the various elements at our disposal we can form millions of different combinations, but any one of these combinations, so long as it is isolated, is ab- solutely without value; often we have taken great trouble to construct it, but it is of absolutely no use, unless it be, perhaps, to supply a subject for an exer- cise in secondary schools. It will be quite different as soon as this combination takes its place in a class of analogous combinations whose analogy we have recognized ; we shall then be no longer in presence of a fact, but of a law. And then the true discoverer will not be the workman who has patiently built up some of these combinations, but the man who has brought out their relation. The former has only seen the bare fact, the latter alone has detected the soul of the fact. The invention of a new word will often be sufficient to bring out the relation, and the word will be creative. The history of science furnishes us with a host of examples that are familiar to all The celebrated Viennese philosopher Mach has said that the part of science is to effect economy of thought, just as a machine effects economy of effort, and this is very true. The savage calculates on his fingers, or
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