392 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



baboons ; but it is another story with the anthropoid apes, 

 which will quickly loosen the knot. All the faculties of the 

 lower animals are devoted merely to the search for immediate 

 necessities, and they are satisfied when the object is attained. 

 It does not occur to them that they might facilitate the search by 

 a previous investigation of phenomena. Similarly when we 

 rise in the scale of mankind, we find that most of them are 

 merely searching for their food ; they try here and there ; they 

 remember the directions in which they do or do not succeed, 

 and are thus able to follow the most promising course — the 

 agriculturist in a search for the best crops, the shopkeeper in 

 the choice of goods for sale, the financier in his selection of 

 securities, the politician in search of policies, and even the 

 mathematician in the solution of numerical equations. That is, 

 they seek by the method of trial and failure for a solution of the 

 immediate problem before them — which is generally concerned 

 with their livelihood. It does not occur to them to investigate 

 the phenomena under consideration, to generalise, and to make 

 one solution suffice for many. When we rise to this point we 

 become men of science and inventors. In the great dumb ages 

 which elapsed before men became conscious of science many of 

 them must have observed the different shapes of stones, and 

 have even selected certain shapes for their houses. Then some 

 genius thought of investigating shapes in general, and the 

 science of geometry was created, and the Pyramids and Parthe- 

 non rose from the ground. Every one was acquainted with fire, 

 but it was not until we commenced to investigate burning in 

 general that chemistry was born ; and men were almost helpless 

 before infectious disease until a few students began to investi- 

 gate its cause. 



The dog does not untie the knot because it never occurs to 

 him to attempt to do so, though he would be easily able to do so 

 with his teeth if it had occurred to him. All those who observed 

 the different shapes of stones did not found geometry, not per- 

 haps because they would have been unable to do so, but because 

 the conception of generalisation and the wish for it never 

 entered their mind. How many millions of dogs or of men may 

 have performed these feats if only they had thought of them ? 

 The new idea is always the rarest idea. How many millions or 

 billions of men and how many thousands of sages must have 

 watched the heavenly bodies rising and setting and evidently 



