?

The men of contemporary science are very fond of saying, triumphantly and
confidently, "We investigate only facts," imagining that these words
contain some meaning. It is impossible to investigate facts alone,
because the facts which are subject to our investigation are
_innumerable_ (in the definite sense of that word),--innumerable. Before
we proceed to investigate facts, we must have a theory on the foundation
of which these or those facts can be inquired into, i.e., selected from
the incalculable quantity.

And this theory exists, and is even very definitely expressed, although
many of the workers in contemporary science do not know it, or often
pretend that they do not know it. Exactly thus has it always been with
all prevailing and guiding doctrines. The foundations of every doctrine
are always stated in a theory, and the so-called learned men merely
invent further deductions from the foundations once stated. Thus
contemporary science is selecting its facts on the foundation of a very
definite theory, which it sometimes knows, sometimes refuses to know, and
sometimes really does not know; but the theory exists.

The theory is as follows: All mankind is an undying organism; men are the
particles of that organism, and each one of them has his own special task
for the service of others. In the same manner, the cells united in an
organism share among them the labor of fight for existence of the whole
organism; they magnify the power of one capacity, and weaken another, and
unite in one organ, in order the better to supply the requirements of the
whole organism. And exactly in the same manner as with gregarious
animals,--ants or bees,--the separate individuals divide the labor among
them. The queen lays the egg, the drone fructifies it; the bee works his
whole life long. And precisely this thing takes place in mankind and in
human societies. And therefore, in order to find the law of life for
man, it is necessary to study the laws of the life and the development of
organisms.

In the life and development of organisms, we find the following laws: the
law of differentiation and integration, the law that every phenomenon is
accompanied not by direct consequences alone, another law regarding the
instability of type, and so on. All this seems very innocent; but it is
only necessary to draw the deductions from all these laws, in order to
immediately perceive that these laws incline in the same direction as t