The problem of invention, the reflective and scientific
side of his life, was suffused with interest, because the manufacture
of the weapon was, psychologically speaking, a part of the fight.
This type of interest, originating in the hunt, remains dominant
in the mind down to the present time. Once constructed to take an
interest in the hunting problem, it takes an interest in any problem
whatever. Not only do hunting and fighting and all competitive
games--which are of precisely the same psychological pattern as the
hunt and fight--remain of perennial interest, but all the useful
occupations are interesting in just the degree that this pattern is
preserved. The man of science works at problems and uses his ingenuity
in making an engine in the laboratory in the same way that primitive
man used his mind in making a trap. So long as the problem is
present, the interest is sustained; and the interest ceases when
the problematical is removed. Consequently, all modern occupations
of the hunting pattern--scientific investigation, law, medicine,
the organization of business, trade speculation, and the arts and
crafts--are interesting as a game; while those occupations into which
the division of labor enters to the degree that the workman is not
attempting to control a problem, and in which the same acts are
repeated an indefinite number of times, lose interest and become
extremely irksome.
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