COMMON SENSE (aND SCIENCE) 27 



such limitation in species of subject matter— and important conse- 

 quences have recently been noted by Sherrington and Schrodinger— 

 this is a limitation science shares with common sense. 



Some differences: progressivisin and impressiveness. In science 

 we feel a wholly novel dynamic progressivism for which, anticipat- 

 ing the results of later discussion, I find at least three major sources. 

 First, in science the fourth stage in the organization of experience 

 provides an optimal deployment of what we already know in the 

 search for what we do not yet know. Second, in the quest for new 

 knowledge the development of refined physical devices often permits 

 systematic experimentation to replace obsers^ation; and a new elab- 

 oration of mental devices is even more significant. The man of com- 

 mon sense disposes of a limited number of concepts, and must rely 

 on these alone; the conceptual arsenal of the scientist is in constant 

 rapid growth. Finding no existing concept appropriate, he is trained 

 and prepared to make new concepts. Not bound by the resources of 

 everyday language, he makes new words to represent his new con- 

 cepts, and even, as required, new (mathematical) languages with 

 structures different from that of everyday language. Third, science 

 progresses simply because it is critical of its failures. Knowing the 

 relations of common sense to be imperfect, we usually permit the 

 survival even of relations that yield frequent unaccountable failures 

 in prediction. Of a colligative relation of science— of a "law of nature" 

 —we expect and demand more. Here an unexplained failure pro- 

 vokes energetic re-examination of the situation that, by revealing 

 antecedent error, can open the way to subsequent progress. 



Impressiveness is a further trait we find highly characteristic of 

 modern science. We are amply impressed by the many accurate pre- 

 dictions it supplies, but overivhelmingly impressed by the sense of 

 rational order it conveys to us. Like common sense, science must 

 seek order as means to prediction. But in science the search for theo- 

 retical order takes on new urgency, and becomes so compelling that 

 for most scientists prediction— no longer the end to which organiza- 

 tion is the means— is rather the means of appraising progress toward 

 the goal of rational organization. Why should order seem important 

 as an end in itself? Finding ourselves able to organize our experience 

 of the world, we feel ourselves able to understand the world of our 

 experience. Some curious dualisms of meaning testify to the deep- 

 rootedness of this connection. To articulate means both "to join to- 



