MODERN SCIENCE 223
in perplexity : 'But when will tins be done ? We can- not wait. Vou say yourselves that you will discover these things after some generations. But we are alive now — alive to-day and dead to-morrow — and we want to know how to live our life while we have it. 5?o teach us !'
' WhsX a stupid and uneducated man !' replies science. ' He does not understand that science exists not for use, but for science. Science studies whatever presents itself for study, and cannot select the subjecb? to he studied. Science studies everything. That is the characteristic of science.'
And scientists are really convinced that to he occu- ])ied with trifles, while neglecting what is more essential and important, is a characteristic not of themselves, but of science. The plain, reasonable man, however, be- gins to suspect that this characteristic pertains not to science, but to men who are inclined to occupy them- selves uith trifles and to attach great importance to those trifles.
' Science studies everything,' say the scientists. But, really, everything is too much. Everything is an infinite quantity of objects ; it is impossible at one and the same time to study all. As a lantern cannot light up everything, but only lights up the place on which it is turned or the direction in which the man carrying it is walking, so also science cannot study ever)i;hing, but inevitably only studies that to which its attention is directed. And as a lantern liglits up most strongly the place nearest to it, and less and less strongly objects that are more and more remote from it, and does not at all light up those things its light does not reach, so also human science, of whatever kind, has always studied and still studies most carefully what seems most important to the investigators, less carefully what seems to them less important, and quite neglects the whole remaining infinite quantity of objects. And what for men has defined and still defines the subjects they are to consider most important, less important,
