Page:The Function of Reason.pdf/70

 abstract thought, energizing in the minds of men and waiting to give significance to their chance experiences. It remained in contemplation and the ideas became static. This sheer contemplation of abstract ideas had stifled the anarchic curiosity producing novelty. Speculation had faded out of Reason. Millions had seen apples fail from trees, but Newton had in his mind the mathematical scheme of dynamic relations: millions had seen lamps swinging in temples and churches, but Galileo had in his mind his vaguer anticipation of this same mathematical scheme: millions had seen animals preying on each other, vegetables choking each other, millions had endured famine and thirst, but Charles Darwin had in his mind the Malthusian scheme. The secret of progress is the speculative interest in abstract schemes of morphology. It is hardly realized for how long a time such abstract schemes can grow in the minds of men before contact with practical interests. The story of the development of mathematical physics has been told and retold, but its moral is so overwhelming that it must never be allowed out of sight.

Consider the early stage of mathematics — a few technological dodges in Egypt about two thousand years before Christ. It was a minor element in a great civilization. About five hundred years before Christ, the Greeks initiated its theoretical development for the love of the theory. This was about four or five hundred years after the date of Solomon’s dream, the greatest prophecy ever made. The genius