48 THE LIFE OF SCIENCE 



would become metaphysical axioms, dogmas, a new kind of 

 revelation. 



That is what some scientists come to, who, for fear of falling 

 into literature or "metaphysics" (as they put it) , banish all histor- 

 ical or philosophic considerations. Alas! the exclusive worship of 

 positive facts makes them sink into the worst kind of metaphysics 

 — scientific idolatry. 



Fortunately, it happens at certain periods of evolution that re- 

 sounding and paradoxical discoveries make an inventory and a 

 thorough survey of our knowledge more obviously necessary to 

 everybody. We are fortunate enough to be living at one of these 

 critical and most interesting periods. 



The purpose of historical criticism is not merely to render 

 science more accurate, but also to bring order and clarity into 

 it, to simplify it. Indeed, it is the survey of the past that enables 

 us best to extricate what is really essential. The importance of a 

 concept appears in a much better light when one has taken the 

 trouble to consider all the difficulties that were surmounted to 

 reach it, all the errors with which it was entangled, in short, all 

 the previous life that has given birth to it. One could say that the 

 riches and fertility of a concept are a function of its heredity, and 

 that alone makes it worth while to study its genealogy. 



The history of science is accomplishing an endless purification 

 of scientific facts and ideas. It enables us to deepen them, which is 

 undoubtedly the best way to make them simpler. This simplifica- 

 tion is, of course, the more necessary as science grows bigger and 

 more intricate. By the way, it is thanks to this progressive 

 simplification that an encyclopedic knowledge does not become 

 utterly impossible; in certain cases it becomes even more ac- 

 cessible. For instance, is it not easier to study chemistry or as- 

 tronomy — I mean the essentials of it — now than it was, say, in the 

 fifteenth century? 



I think one can infer from all the preceding remarks that no 

 scientist is entitled to claim a profound and complete knowledge 

 of his branch of science if he is not acquainted with its history. I 



