HISTORY OF SCIENCE 43 



more true?" Anyhow, they are easier to grasp and more fertile; 

 and for these reasons alone it is worth while to give them our 

 preference. 



THE SCIENTIFIC POINT OF VIEW 



The history of science has a great heuristic value, especially if 

 it has been worked out by somebody who is as well acquainted 

 with modern scientific tendencies as with ancient ones. The se- 

 quence of old discoveries suggests similar concatenations to the 

 scientist, and so enables him to make new discoveries. Disused 

 methods, cleverly modified, may be rendered efficient again. When 

 this is understood, the history of science becomes really a research 

 method. A great scientist of our own time, Ostwald, has even 

 gone so far as to say that, "It is nothing but a research method." 

 We do not admit that much. Anyhow, new and old science com- 

 plete and continuously help one another to advance and to di- 

 minish the unknown that surrounds us everywhere. Does this 

 idea not illuminate our conception of universal scientific col- 

 laboration? Death itself does not interrupt the scientist's work. 

 Theories once unfolded are eternally living and acting. 



To give to our history all its heuristic value, it is not sufficient 

 to retrace the progress of the human mind. It is also necessary to 

 remember the regressions, the sudden halts, the mishaps of all 

 kinds that have interrupted its course. The history of errors is 

 extremely useful; for one thing, because it helps us to better ap- 

 preciate the evolution of truth; also because it enables us to avoid 

 the same mistakes in the future; lastly, because the errors of 

 science are of a relative nature. The truths of today will perhaps 

 be considered tomorrow, if not as complete mistakes, at least as 

 very incomplete truths; and who knows whether the errors of 

 yesterday will not be the approximate truths of tomorrow? Simi- 

 lar rehabilitations frequently occur, and the results of historical 

 research often oblige us to admire and honor people who have 

 been misunderstood and despised in their own time. This inci- 



