HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



51 



ical and sincere biographies make excellent contributions to the 

 history of mankind. Would not the students work with a better 

 heart and more enthusiasm, would they not have a deeper re- 

 spect for science, if they knew a little more about the heroes who 

 have built it up, stone by stone, at the expense of so much suffer- 

 ing, struggle and perseverance? Would they not be more eager to 

 undertake some disinterested research work? Or, at least, would 

 they not better appreciate the greatness and beauty of the whole 

 if they had, more or less, partaken of the joy and intoxication of 

 seeing it accomplished amidst continuous difficulties? 



Lastly, the history of science — even more than ordinary history 

 — is a general education in itself. It familiarizes us with the ideas 

 of evolution and continuous transformation of human things; it 

 makes us understand the relative and precarious nature of all our 

 knowledge; it sharpens our judgment; it shows us that, if 

 the accomplishments of mankind as a whole are really grand, the 

 contribution of each of us is, in the main, small, and that even 

 the greatest amongst us ought to be modest. It helps to make 

 scientists who are not mere scientists, but also men and citizens. 



THE PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SOCIOLOGICAL 

 POINTS OF VIEW 



The history of science, its birth, its evolution, its diffusion, its 

 progress and regressions, irresistibly imposes upon us a series of 

 psychological problems. We here enter the field of "universal 

 history/' such as the much-lamented Karl Lamprecht has defined 

 it; for the history of science in the main amounts to psycho- 

 sociological investigation. 



It is necessary to make a preliminary distinction. The progress 

 of science is due to two different kinds of causes: (1) Purely 

 psychological causes, the intellectual work of the scientist; (2) 

 Material causes, principally the appearance of new subject matter 

 or the use of improved scientific tools. Of course, it is not difficult 

 to show that the origin of these material causes is itself more or 



