On Thought Experiments

Abstract

Man collects experiences by observing changes in his surroundings. However, the most interesting and instructive changes for him are those that he can influence through his own intervention and deliberate movements. As regards such changes he need not remain purely passive, he can actively adapt them to his own requirements; besides, they are for him of the highest economic, practical and intellectual importance. That is what makes experiments so valuable. If we observe how a child in the first stages of independence examines the sensitivity of his own limbs, how he is surprised by his mirror image or by his shadow in sunlight and tries out how they behave by making movements, how he practises hitting a target we are driven to conclude that man has an innate tendency towards experiment, and that without much looking about he finds within himself the basic experimental method of variation. If the adult temporarily loses these treasures so that he must as it were discover them afresh, the explanation is that his social upbringing narrows his circle of interests and confines him to it while at the same time he acquires a large number of ready opinions, not to say prejudices, that he supposes not to be in need of examination.

Cf. E. Zola, Le Roman expérimental, Paris 1898.