322 CREATIVE SCIENCE 



To the discoverer in the field of theoretical physics, the constructions 

 of his imagination appear so necessary and so natural that he is apt to 

 treat them as he hopes others will treat them: not as the creations of 

 his thoughts, but as given realities. 



Yet a third contributory factor is also acti\'e. The scientist loves sci- 

 ence, and honors its "truths." He seeks public acknowledgment of 

 these truths as supreme o\'er the "idle fancies" of vulgar superstition, 

 sophisticated obscurantism, and muddle-headed mysticism. He then 

 wants to believe, and present, his truths as the gleanings of a super- 

 latively reliable Method. Such will be a Method sceptical of fallible 

 human ideas, a Method accepting the authority only of "indubitable 

 facf and "inexorable logic" 



Reinforcing all such "reasons," and setting at nought all objections 

 to Method, is the further potent factor suggested by Polanyi's shrewd 

 observation that the scientist 



. . . can accept . . . the most inadequate and misleading formula- 

 tion of his own scientific principles without ever realizing what is 

 being said, because he automatically supplements it by his tacit 

 knowledge of what science really is, and thus makes the formulation 

 ring true. 



Thus it is, I think, that scientists can accept, and advocate, one 

 Method while actually practicing quite another. The four terms 

 stressed by Method ( left column ) represent the indicated four pairs 

 of polar antitheses. One member of each pair, forever passing un- 



Empiricism ( and facts ) Speculation (and hypotheses) 



Scepticism (and detachment) Faith (and commitment) 



Logic Imagination 



Order Chance 



mentioned, is always "understood." Both members of all pairs are 

 duly represented in science, and it were folly to make of this a 

 paradox or mystification. The scientist does not "reconcile irreconcila- 

 bles." As with all human endeavors, science lives and functions in the 

 midst of purely conceptual abstractions that correspond to nothing 

 distinctly separable as such either in ourseh'es or in the world. We 

 might then write of scientists in terms analogous to those used by 



