But is this really a dead weight that impedes the progress of science,
or is it not rather its innermost redeeming essence? It is in fact the
latter, and it is a gross stupidity to presume to rebel against the very
condition of life.
Knowledge is employed in the service of the necessity of life and
primarily in the service of the instinct of personal preservation. This
necessity and this instinct have created in man the organs of knowledge
and given them such capacity as they possess. Man sees, hears, touches,
tastes, and smells that which it is necessary for him to see, hear,
touch, taste, and smell in order to preserve his life. The decay or the
loss of any of these senses increases the risks with which his life is
environed, and if it increases them less in the state of society in
which we are actually living, the reason is that some see, hear, touch,
and smell for others. A blind man, by himself and without a guide, could
not live long. Society is an additional sense; it is the true common
sense.
Man, then, in his quality of an isolated individual, only sees, hears,
touches, tastes, and smells in so far as is necessary for living and
self-preservation. If he does not perceive colours below red or above
violet, the reason perhaps is that the colours which he does perceive
suffice for the purposes of self-preservation. And the senses themselves
are simplifying apparati which eliminate from objective reality
everything that it is not necessary to know in order to utilize objects
for the purpose of preserving life.
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