The sphere of the exact sciences does not grow
wider, but narrower. It would be very instructive to study the
history of natural science at the point it has reached."
"Why do you not write such a history?" asked Schrotter.
"Why? It would be foolish to add another book to the millions of
books already written. All that one can say about it is soon said.
Anything really new is written once in a thousand years, all the
rest is repetition, dilution, compilation. If everyone who writes on
a subject were to read first everything which has been written on
that subject, he would very soon throw his pen out of the window."
"I must again differ from you," said Dorfling. "I think it is best,
that we so seldom know all that has been thought and written on a
subject. It is best that we write new books without wearying to read
the millions of others. I grant that most books are only repetitions
of earlier ones. But it is unconscious repetition, and it is exactly
that which gives it a wonderfully new meaning. It proves unity of
mind, identity of science. Thousands of men daily discover
gunpowder. Many of them laugh, because gunpowder was first
discovered two hundred years ago. I do not laugh. I see in it the
manifestation of the eternal unity of phenomenal principle.
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