[Undated] [6]. Cogitations

I have said that the inchoate mass of incoherent, or apparently incoherent, elements can, by selection of the appropriate fact, be made to appear to the observer to come together as a whole in which the elements are now seen to be related to each other as parts of the whole. When time is essential, this selected fact is known as the cause, but this fact is otherwise no different from other facts that are selected for their apparent ability to bring these elements together as a whole. Such facts do not necessarily possess intrinsic significance; that depends on what fact the observer lacks, and that clearly depends on the observer. The acceleration of the falling body could not be ‘understood’ by Galileo till he had selected the fact that the fall was proportional to the time through which the body had fallen, and not the distance (is this an instance of asking the right question: ‘when?’, not ‘where?’). This fact is not a scientific fact unless and until it can be communicated and then found to be (or not to be) one that fulfils this function of integration for a large number of people, or a society or a group, ‘in common’. But at first it is a private fact and is chosen because it fits into a scientific deductive system or calculus of immense complexity, for it is co-extensive with the entire mentality of the person.

In the instance of acceleration of falling bodies, it was Galileo who required a fact that would give coherence and meaning to the facts already known to him but felt to be devoid of coherence. But the environment, the world of external reality, was for all practical purposes no different for all Galileo's contemporaries. The majority of mankind, we may be sure, were unaware of any lack of coherence in the facts that they perceived to be associated with falling bodies. Yet it is not to be believed that the individual lacked preoccupations then, any more than he does today. Every individual is in a state of mind in which he is aware of elements of a worl