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[...] What is the objective value of science? And first what should we understand by objectivity?

What guarantees the objectivity of the world in which we live is that this world is common to us with other thinking beings. Through the communications that we have with other men, we receive from them ready-made reasonings; we know that these reasonings do not come from us and at the same time we recognize in them the work of reasonable beings like ourselves. And as these reasonings appear to fit the world of our sensations, we think we may infer that these reasonable beings have seen the same thing as we; thus [...] we know we have not been dreaming.

Such, therefore, is the first condition of objectivity; what is objective must be common to many minds and consequently transmissible from one to the other, and as this transmission can only come about by [...] 'discourse' [...], we are even forced to conclude: no discourse, no objectivity.

The sensations of others will be for us a world eternally closed. We have no means of verifying that the sensation I call red is the same as that which my neighbor calls red.

Suppose that a cherry and a red poppy produce on me the sensation A and on him the sensation B and that, on the contrary, a leaf produces on me the sensation B and on him the sensation A. It is clear we shall never know anything about it; since I shall call red the sensation A and green the sensation B, while he will call the first green and the second red. In compensation, what we shall be able to ascertain is that, for him as for me, the cherry and the red poppy produce the same sensation, since he gives the same name to the sensations he feels and I do the same.

Sensations are therefore intransmissible, or rather all that is pure quality in them is intransmissible and forever impenetrable. But it is not the same with relations between these sensations.

From this point of view, all that is objective is devoid of all quality and is only pure relation. Certainly, I shall not go so far as to say that objectivity is only pure quantity (this would be to particularize too far the nature of the relations in question), but we understand how someone could have been carried away into saying that the world is only a differential equation.

With due reserve regarding this paradoxical proposition, we must nevertheless admit that nothing is objective which is not transmissible, and consequently that the relations between the sensations can alone have an objective value.

Perhaps it will be said that the aesthetic emotion, which is common to all mankind, is proof that the qualities of our sensations are also the same for all men and hence are objective. But if we think about this, we shall see that the proof is not complete; what is proved is that this emotion is aroused in John as in James by the sensations to which James and John give the same name or by the corresponding combinations of these sensations; either because this emotion is associated in John with the sensation A, which John calls red, while parallelly it is associated in James with the sensation B, which James calls red; or better because this emotion is aroused, not by the qualities themselves of the sensations, but by the harmonious combination of their relations of which we undergo the unconscious impression.

Such a sensation is beautiful, not because it possesses such a quality, but because it occupies such a place in the fabric of our associations of ideas, so that it can not be excited without putting in motion the 'receiver' which is at the other end of the thread and which corresponds to the artistic emotion.

Whether we take the moral, the aesthetic or the scientific point of view, it is always the same thing. Nothing is objective except what is identical for all; now we can only speak of such an identity if a comparison is possible, and can be translated into a 'money of exchange' capable of transmission from one mind to another. Nothing, therefore, will have objective value except what is transmissible by 'discourse,' that is, intelligible.

But this is only one side of the question. An absolutely disordered aggregate could not have objective value since it would be unintelligible, but no more can a well-ordered assemblage have it, if it does not correspond to sensations really experienced. [...] Two conditions are therefore to be fulfilled, and if the first separates reality^a from the dream, the second distinguishes it from the romance.

Now what is science? I have explained in the preceding article, it is before all a classification, a manner of bringing together facts which appearances separate, though they were bound together by some natural and hidden kinship. Science, in other words, is a system of relations. Now we have just said, it is in the relations alone that objectivity must be sought; it would be vain to seek it in beings considered as isolated from one another.

To say that science cannot have objective value since it teaches us only relations, this is to reason backward, since, precisely, it is relations alone which can be regarded as objective.

External objects, for instance, for which the word object was invented, are really objects and not fleeting and fugitive appearances, because they are not only groups of sensations, but groups cemented by a constant bond. It is this bond, and this bond alone, which is the object in itself, and this bond is a relation.

Therefore, when we ask what is the objective value of science, that does not mean: Does science teach us the true nature of things? but it means: Does it teach us the true relations of things?

To the first question, no one would hesitate to reply, no; but I think we may go farther; not only science can not teach us the nature of things; but nothing is capable of teaching it to us, and if any god knew it, he could not find words to express it. Not only can we not divine the response, but if it were given to us we could understand nothing of it; I ask myself even whether we really understand the question.

When, therefore, a scientific theory pretends to teach us what heat is, or what is electricity, or life, it is condemned beforehand; all it can give us is only a crude image. It is, therefore, provisional and crumbling.

The first question being out of reason, the second remains. Can science teach us the true relations of things? What it joins together should that be put apart, what it puts apart should that be joined together?

To understand the meaning of this new question, it is needful to refer to what was said above on the conditions of objectivity. Have these relations an objective value? That means: Are these relations the same for all? Will they still be the same for those who shall come after us?

It is clear that they are not the same for the scientist and the ignorant person. But that is unimportant, because if the ignorant person does not see them all at once, the scientist may succeed in making him see them by a series of experiments and reasonings. The thing essential is that there are points on which all those acquainted with the experiments made can reach accord.

The question is to know whether this accord will be durable and whether it will persist for our successors. It may be asked whether the unions that the science of today makes will be confirmed by the science of tomorrow. To affirm that it will be so we can not invoke any a priori reason; but this is a question of fact, and science has already lived long enough for us to be able to find out by asking its history whether the edifices it builds stand the test of time, or whether they are only ephemeral constructions.

Now what do we see? At first sight, it seems to us that the theories last only a day and that ruins upon ruins accumulate. Today the theories are born, tomorrow they are the fashion, the day after tomorrow they are classic, the fourth day they are obsolete, and the fifth they are forgotten. But if we look more closely, we see that what thus succumb are the theories properly so called, those which pretend to teach us what things are. But there is in them something which usually survives. If one of them taught us a true relation, this relation is definitively acquired, and it will be found again under a new disguise in the other theories which will successively come to reign in place of the old.

Take only a single example: The theory of the undulations of the ether taught us that light is a motion; today fashion favors the electromagnetic theory which teaches us that light is a current. We do not consider whether we could reconcile them and say that light is a current, and that this current is a motion. As it is probable in any case that this motion would not be identical with that which the partisans of the old theory presume, we might think ourselves justified in saying that this old theory is dethroned. And yet something of it remains, since between the hypothetical currents which Maxwell supposes there are the same relations as between the hypothetical motions that Fresnel supposed. There is, therefore, something which remains over and this something is the essential. This it is which explains how we see the present physicists pass without any embarrassment from the language of Fresnel to that of Maxwell. Doubtless many connections that were believed well established have been abandoned, but the greatest number remain and it would seem must remain.

And for these, then, what is the measure of their objectivity? Well, it is precisely the same as for our belief in external objects. These latter are real in this, that the sensations they make us feel appear to us as united to each other by I know not what indestructible cement and not by the hazard of a day. In the same way science reveals to us between phenomena other bonds finer but not less solid; these are threads so slender that they long remained unperceived, but once noticed there remains no way of not seeing them; they are therefore not less real than those which give their reality to external objects; small matter that they are more recently known, since neither can perish before the other.

It may be said, for instance, that the ether is no less real than any external body; to say this body exists is to say there is between the color of this body, its taste, its smell, an intimate bond, solid and persistent; to say the ether exists is to say there is a natural kinship between all the optical phenomena, and neither of the two propositions has less value than the other.

And the scientific syntheses have in a sense even more reality than those of the ordinary senses, since they embrace more terms and tend to absorb in them the partial syntheses.

It will be said that science is only a classification and that a classification cannot be true, but convenient. But it is true that it is convenient, it is true that it is so not only for me, but for all men; it is true that it will remain convenient for our descendants; it is true finally that this can not be by chance.

In sum, the sole objective reality consists in the relations of things whence results the universal harmony. Doubtless these relations, this harmony, could not be conceived outside of a mind which conceives them. But they are nevertheless objective because they are, will become, or will remain, common to all thinking beings.

This will permit us to revert to the question of the rotation of the earth which will give us at the same time a chance to make clear what precedes by an example.

[...]

A physical theory [...] is by so much the more true as it puts in evidence more true relations. In the light of this new principle, let us examine the question which occupies us.

No, there is no absolute space; these two contradictory propositions: 'The earth turns round' and 'The earth does not turn round' are, therefore, neither of them more true than the other. To affirm one while denying the other, in the kinematic sense, would be to admit the existence of absolute space.

But if the one reveals true relations that the other hides from us, we can nevertheless regard it as physically more true than the other, since it has a richer content. Now in this regard no doubt is possible.

Behold the apparent daily motion of the stars, and the daily motion of the other heavenly bodies, and besides, the flattening of the earth, the rotation of Foucault's pendulum, the rotation of cyclones, the trade-winds, and so on. For the Ptolemaist all these phenomena have no bond between them; for the Copernican they are produced by the one same cause. In saying, the earth turns round, I affirm that all these phenomena have an intimate relation, and that is true, and that remains true, although there is not and can not be absolute space.

So much for the rotation of the earth upon itself; what shall we say of its revolution around the sun? Here again, we have three phenomena which for the Ptolemaist are absolutely independent and which for the Copernican are referred back to the same origin; they are the apparent displacements of the planets on the celestial sphere, the aberration of the fixed stars, the parallax of these same stars. Is it by chance that all the planets admit an inequality whose period is a year, and that this period is precisely equal to that of aberration, precisely equal besides to that of parallax? To adopt Ptolemy's system is to answer, yes; to adopt that of Copernicus is to answer, no; this is to affirm that there is a bond between the three phenomena, and that also is true, although there is no absolute space.

In Ptolemy's system, the motions of the heavenly bodies cannot be explained by the action of central forces, celestial mechanics is impossible. The intimate relations that celestial mechanics reveals to us between all the celestial phenomena are true relations; to affirm the immobility of the earth would be to deny these relations, that would be to fool ourselves.

The truth for which Galileo suffered remains, therefore, the truth, although it has not altogether the same meaning as for the general public, and its true meaning is much more subtle, more profound and more rich.

[...]

We cannot know all facts and it is necessary to choose those which are worthy of being known. According to Tolstoi, scientists make this choice at random, instead of making it, which would be reasonable, with a view to practical applications. On the contrary, scientists think that certain facts are more interesting than others, because they complete an unfinished harmony, or because they make one foresee a great number of other facts. If they are wrong, if this hierarchy of facts that they implicitly postulate is only an idle illusion, there could be no science for its own sake, and consequently there could be no science. As for me, I believe they are right, and, for example, I have shown above what is the high value of astronomical facts, not because they are capable of practical applications, but because they are the most instructive of all.

It is only through science and art that civilization is of value. [...]

Every act should have an aim. We must suffer, we must work, we must pay for our place at the game, but this is for seeing's sake; or at the very least that others may one day see.

All that is not thought is pure nothingness; since we can think only thoughts and all the words we use to speak of things can express only thoughts, to say there is something other than thought, is therefore an affirmation which can have no meaning.

And yet—strange contradiction for those who believe in time—geologic history shows us that life is only a short episode between two eternities of death, and that, even in this episode, conscious thought has lasted and will last only a moment. Thought is only a gleam in the midst of a long night.

But it is this gleam which is everything.

Footnotes

a I here use the word real as a synonym of objective; I thus conform to common usage; perhaps I am wrong, our dreams are real, but they are not objective.

Bibliography

1. Henri Poincaré, La Valeur de la Science (Flammarion, Paris, 1905).

2. Henri Poincaré, The Value ofScience (The Science Press, New York, 1907).

Contact

Reach the editor at: contact@resorttoreason.com

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