320 CREATIVE SCIENCE 



what cannot be taught can be learned. And learning may be facili- 

 tated by imparting to the student various methodological maxims in- 

 sufficient in themselves. Given the maxims, the student may more 

 rapidly grasp the skill that escapes complete description in terms of 

 maxims and, conversely, grasping the skill he sees at last the full im- 

 port of the maxims. But surely what most effectively promotes the 

 student's achievement of the skill will be close association with one 

 who is master of it. "By watching the master and emulating his ef- 

 forts in the presence of his example," says Polanyi, "the apprentice 

 unconsciously picks up the rules of the art, . . ." And elsewhere he 

 remarks : 



A master's daily labors will reveal these to the intelligent student and 

 impart to him also some of the master's personal intuitions by which 

 his work is guided. The way he chooses problems, selects a technique, 

 reacts to new clues and to unforeseen difficulties, discusses other sci- 

 entists' work, and keeps speculating all the time about a hundred pos- 

 sibilities which are never to materialize, may transmit a reflection at 

 least of his essential visions. This is why so often great scientists fol- 

 low great masters as apprentices. . . 



SCIENTIFIC METHOD: SHADOW AND SUBSTANCE 



We never credit the possibility of a definable Literary Method prac- 

 tice of which brings within reach of mediocrity the production of 

 works of genius. Yet at least four reasons may encourage even master 

 scientists, and others, to believe possible a communicable Scientific 

 Method with some such magic power. 



First: The striking progressivism of science may seem to find a 

 plausible explanation in the idea that scientists systematically ex- 

 ploit some uniquely powerful Method. x\nd the shape of Method is 

 sketched long before science can itself lay claim to any special dyna- 

 mism. For Bacon the door to scientific progress was to be unlocked 

 by the same two-pronged key that had opened the way to progress 

 in the practical arts: a thorough-going empiricism, coupled with a 

 thorough-going disregard for both vulgar superstition and sophisti- 

 cated but fossilized general systems of ideas. Method is thus powered 

 by scepticism and centered on facts. In cursory reading of scientific 

 history, if we always take for granted the availability of ideas, then 

 progress will indeed seem to turn on the discovery of facts. Just so, 

 if we take also for granted an unshakable confidence in certain be- 



