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56 Jean Piaget
We stress this example because it is most instructive, especially in comparison
with the way in which applications are made in the natural sciences. As weknow,
the applications in physics, chemistry and biology, which are altogether more
valid, have often occurred in the most unexpected way as a result of basic
research and sometimes even of purely theoretical research totally unrelated to
practical application. An example which has often been quoted is the r61e of
Maxwell’s equations in present-day applications of electromagnetics. But if we
confine ourselves solely to application and try, for instance, to measure a sub-
ject’s intelligence before we understand what intelligence is in general and how
it evolves, the applications we make will be much more limited than those that
we could expect to make once we had understood the formative mechanisms.
In short, there is no such thing as ‘applied psychology’ as an independent
branch of study; although any sound psychological study wil lead to valid
applications. Broadly speaking, the function of the sciences of man is to provide
increasingly valuable applications, in all spheres of knowledge, but on condition
that basic research is developed without prior limitation imposed for the sake of
utilitarian criteria; for what seems to be the least valuable at the beginning may
have the most unexpected consequences, whereas initial delimitation with a
view to practice makes it impossible to see all the questions at issue, and may
result in neglect of what is in fact the most important and fruitful line of investi-
gation.
NOTES
I. The return to the hypothesis of the innate by the linguist Chomsky should, how-
ever, be noted, although his theories would remain just as valid if this ‘innate
fixed nucleus’ were replaced by a self-regulating mechanism resulting from sen-
sory-motor development at the stage of incipient self-expression.
2. We should also mention G. Beaujouan’s study ‘Le temps historique’ in: L’histoire
et ses rndthodes, Paris, Gallimard (Encyclopbdie de la Plbiade), which studies
historical rhythms and cycles.
3. It should be noted that N. Chomsky considers himself a descendant of the Port-
Royal grammarians because (no doubt rightly) he is more inclined to see the
effect of logic on language than the converse. But the very fact that he adds to the
‘fixed kernel’ of grammar a series of transforming processes of which he has
discovered the existence and laws shows what progress had been made towards
decentration.
4. Whose quasi-evolutionist ideas were the product of his neoplatonism, as has
recently been demonstrated by workers in Prague.
5. By this is meant the spontaneous propensities observed in any objective study of
the growth of the mental faculties. With children (irrespective of what they may
have learned at school or from adults) it has been noted that deductive processes
develop long before experimental ones, and that the latter are manifestly subor-
dinated to the higher forms of deduction. Facts of this kind, which can be fully
and easily verified, show that socio-economic factors, which generally play a sig-
nificant rBIe, cannot adequately explain why experimentation develops later than
deduction.
6. An example will illustrate the difference between the second and third types.
Durkheim (emergence) sees the obligation imposed by the conscience as a product