to have different meanings in
different contexts. In the long run the effect of this was to detach the
words from the particular contexts in which they arose and loosen their
connections with the particular sentiments and attitudes with which they
were associated. They came to have thus a more distinctively symbolic
and formal character. It was thus possible to give them more precise
definitions, to make of them abstractions and mental toys, which the
individual could play with freely and disinterestedly. Like the child
who builds houses with blocks, he was able to arrange them in orders and
systems, create ideal structures, like the constructions of mathematics,
which he was then able to employ as means of ordering and systematizing
his more concrete experiences.

All this served to give the individual a more complete control over his
own experience and that of the group. It made it possible to analyze and
classify his own experiences and compare them with those of his fellows
and so, eventually, to erect the vast structure of formal and scientific
knowledge on the basis of which men are able to live and work together
in co-operation upon the structure of a common civilization.

The point is that the breadth of the experience over which man has
control and the disinterestedness with which he is able to view it is
the basis of the intellectual attainment of the individual, as of the
race.

If human beings were thoroughly rational creatures, we may presume that
they would act, at every instant, on the basis of all their experience
and all the knowledge that they were able to obtain from the experience
of others. The truth is, however, that we are never able, at any one
time, to mobilize, control, and use all the experience and all the
knowledge that we now possess and which, if we were less human than we
are, might serve to guide and control our actions. It is precisely the
function of science to collect, organize, and make available for our
practical uses the fund of experience and of knowledge we do possess.

Not only do we already have more knowledge than we can use, but much of
our personal and individual experience drops out and is lost in the
course of a lifetime. Meanwhile, later experiences are constantly adding
themselves to the earlier ones. In this way the meaning of the world is
constantly changing for us, much as the surface of the earth is
constantly under the influence of the weather.

The actual cons