346 CREATIVE SCIENCE 



one then encounters the situation Butterfield sketches in historical 

 research : 



Sections of history are hable to be transformed— ... by an imagina- 

 tion that comes, sweeping like a searchhght, from outside the histori- 

 cal profession itself. . . . New matter emerges because things are 

 joined together which it had not occurred to one to see in juxtaposi- 

 tion. New details are elicited, difficult details become relevant, be- 

 cause of a fresh turn that the argument has taken. 



When an "invader" moves into another scientific field he brings with 

 him more than a fresh insight. In his mind are joined two ordinarily 

 separate bodies of knowledge, and the formation of a novel concep- 

 tual pattern may then be immensely facilitated. 



Two fields of view. All scientists have at least two fields of \dew: 

 the world of their particular science and the world of common sense. 

 Many know something of the abstract world of mathematics, some 

 are familiar with parts of the world of technology, a few join with 

 their own science other bodies of special knowledge. Copernicus' 

 professional concern was not astronomy but ecclesiastic law and ad- 

 ministration; Lavoisier was a businessman, Dalton a meteorologist, 

 and Kekule a student of architecture before they turned to chemistry. 

 Pasteur was a crystallographer before he became a bacteriologist. 

 Crick a physicist before he became interested in biochemistry, and 

 Mendel brought to his work what Zirkle identifies as an unusual 

 combination of knowledge and experience: 



Mendelism was the creation of an investigator who hybridized plants 

 and who also raised bees. 



An uncommon combination of fields of view, like youth not essen- 

 tial, like youth powerfully promotes creation of no^'el conceptual 

 patterns. Most obviously, one may thus be led to apply in a new area 

 a conceptual technique earlier developed in another. A more im- 

 portant possibility is the joining together of groups of facts normally 

 distributed among diflFerent sciences. These are separated by bound- 

 aries that, partly matters of historical accident, are in part also re- 

 flection of ancient and current patterns of thought. The formation of 

 a new conceptual pattern may then be possible only for him familiar 

 with the two or more distinct disciplines that deal with the facts 

 whose mutual relevance he will be the first to show. 



