636 THE BIOLOGICAL BASIS OF INDIVIDUALITY 



new symbols for the manipulation of things and events and for the under- 

 standing of reality. The new thought constellations, including those concerned 

 with our own person, are more and more removed from the world in which 

 we directly live and feel pain and satisfaction, the world of the natural and 

 social struggle. But the latter also forms a part of our analysis ; our experi- 

 ences are split by us into parts and these parts are shifted and similar parts 

 synthesized into new concepts, which, as abstractions, become more and 

 more removed from the original direct experiences. This thought world is 

 therefore different from the directly experienced world ; it is a re-organized, 

 a differently and a better ordered world, which allows us to a certain extent 

 to understand and to master the world of direct experience. The concepts 

 thus created are devices allowing us to orient ourselves under new condi- 

 tions, without undergoing again all the manifold experiencs for which the 

 concepts stand. Science functions in an objective thought world, which is 

 less emotion-tinged, less and less actively involved in the various phases of 

 the social struggle and in the particular desires of our individuality. It is the 

 world in which also the dominating factors of the egocentric world are studied 

 as to their origin and nature ; psychical goods and material goods become 

 here objects of analysis and synthesis. Imagination and its creations in 

 poetry and art are likewise objects of examination and our particular 

 individuality recedes in importance, except that it continues to function as 

 the analyzing and synthesizing, and thus as the scientifically creative agent. 

 Yet, we can use the symbols thus created in modifying the frictions of the 

 egocentric world in an effective way; the cruelties of the natural and social 

 struggle may become more and more mitigated and the individuality sec- 

 ondarily gains in value on a more realistic foundation. Thus, by means of 

 science we may, within a certain range, learn to dominate our organism as 

 well as our environment. 



The scientist enjoys his creative work, plays with his thought symbols, 

 just as the poet, artist and musician play with imaginative thoughts, colors, 

 shapes and sounds ; they all abstract from the whole reality as it is directly 

 experienced and select only certain parts of the latter. The poet, artist and 

 musician create things that are meant to supply and maintain or elevate 

 directly or indirectly the value of psychical goods in the natural and social 

 struggle, and thus to sustain and elevate the struggling and suffering indi- 

 vidual. But the scientist, playing likewise, creates a thing that becomes his 

 master, is independent of the direct, primitive experience of the individual 

 and of his struggles. It dominates the investigator, who finds himself more 

 and more limited by his own creation, the thought structure, which is science. 

 His erection of these thought structures represents a vital process, in which 

 imagination is an important instrument, yet which, as far as the influence 

 of the created concepts reaches, restricts his imagination ; it limits him in 

 shaping his life, his picture of reality in accordance with his wishes and in 

 accordance with his imagination. However, even into the building up of 

 science egocentric tendencies penetrate. The analysis of those elements of 

 which the outer world is constituted makes possible a mastery of this world ; 



