3 i8 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



have been determined. The importance of this function of the critical 

 faculty in scientific work is too often overlooked; for it is not always 

 so agreeable to remember that criticism is as fundamental a necessity 

 for creative work as is imagination. Since this interplay between the 

 imaginative and the critical faculties is not so well known as the scien- 

 tific method, we may say that a problem is solved scientifically when 

 its solution has been obtained by the scientific method. 



It is important to notice that this definition of science as problem- 

 solving shifts the emphasis in the scientific work from classified knowl- 

 edge, which is the result of the process, to the process itself, by which 

 the result is obtained. It must also be noted that this definition is 

 more comprehensive than that of classified knowledge, since it may 

 include the operations of a savage in learning to fish and hunt, as well 

 as work by this method in subjects not ordinarily considered parts of 

 science, like classical philology, higher criticism, philosophy and even 

 commerce and politics — not to mention tbeology. 



This third point may now lie summarized as follows: The thing 

 Avhose history is to be studied under the title of history of science is 

 not classified knowledge, the finished product; but it is problem-solving 

 by the scientific method, that active creative process which involves the 

 properly coordinated use of both the imaginative and the critical 

 faculties. 



IV. When we attempt to interpret the history of science in the light 

 of the principles just explained, we are bewildered by the complexity 

 and the magnitude of the task. How may any one ever hope to unravel 

 the tangled mass of material that confronts us, or to bring order out 

 of the apparent chaos of problems which have engaged the attention 

 and taxed the energies of mankind. Consider how intricate and how 

 seemingly inexplicable are the problems that overwhelm each indi- 

 vidual : how much greater must be the intricacy and the almost hopeless 

 mystery of the problems that vex an entire nation at any epoch ! For- 

 tunately, some progress has been made since the time of Hesiod, who 

 wrote: "In the beginning there existed Chaos," the modern view hav- 

 ing been expressed by Chamberlain 4 in the words : " No. Chaos has 

 always been at home only in the human mind, never elsewhere." 

 Hence, it is no longer allowable to regard the attempt to find a rational 

 interpretation of the history of science as foolhardy. 



A good deal of progress has already been made toward the produc- 

 tion of a history of science along the lines here indicated, and a number 

 of practically valuable conclusions have already been reached. For 

 example, the recent discussions of the origin of problems is tending to 

 clarify our notions of how science (problem-solving) originates. This 

 is evidently one of the first phenomena demanding interpretation at the 



4 Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts," p. 737. 



