§ 44. But knowledge of this free type becomes at the same time _social_ or _institutional_. It consists no longer in a skilful adaptation of the individual organism, but in a system of terms common to all intelligence, and preserved in those books and other monuments which serve as the articulate memory of the race. A knowledge that is social must be composed of unequivocal conceptions and fixed symbols. The mathematical laws of the exact sciences represent the most successful attainment of this end so far as form is concerned. Furthermore, the amount of knowledge may now be increased from generation to generation through the service of those who make a vocation of its pursuit. Natural science is thus a cumulative racial proficiency, which any individual may bring to bear upon any emergency of his life.
[Sidenote: Science for Accommodation and Construction.]
§ 45. Such proficiency as science affords is in every case the anticipation of experience. This has a twofold value for mankind, that of _accommodation_, and that of _construction_. Primitively, where mere survival is the function of the organism as a whole, the value of accommodation is relatively fundamental. The knowledge of what may be expected enables the organism to save itself by means of its own counter-arrangement of natural processes. Construction is here for the sake of accommodation. But with the growth of civilization construction becomes a positive interest, and man tends to save himself for definite ends. Accommodation comes to take place for the sake of construction. Science then supplies the individual with the ways and means wherewith to execute life purposes which themselves tend to assume an absolute value that cannot be justified merely on the ground of science.
[Sidenote: Method and Fundamental Conceptions of Natural Science. The Descriptive Method.]
§ 46. If natural science be animated by any special cognitive interest, this motive should appear in the development of its method and fundamental conceptions. If that interest has been truly defined, it should now enable us to understand the progressive and permanent in scientific investigation as directly related to it. For the aim of any discipline exercises a gradual selection from among possible methods, and gives to its laws their determinate and final form.