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Lewin expanded on this theme in his lectures and writings. He believed that development of the sciences only leads to a sharpening of the differences between them. Each science gradually purifies its concepts and segregates itself more and more from its neighbors. In line with these ideas, Lewin cautioned that our desire for meaning and unity of life must not lead us to look for an illusory satisfaction in the idea of a philosophical unity of science. The idea of an eventual unification of all sciences is wishful thinking.

However, physically they are not genidentical, for the molecules composing them have changed. In the same way, a person at the age of forty is biologically identified with the same person at the age of twenty, though physically only a small number of molecules may be the same. He may have changed as a biological entity; but the fact that we can speak of a change means that we refer to the same organism. Thus Lewin tried to show that physics and biology are essentially different in the basic units of description they use.

It seemed absurd, he declared, to suddenly use battle things as peace things. 13. I 1 THE GERJ\IAN YEARS In another paper8 published the same year and based on his dissertation, Lewin expressed his growing belief that motives have much to do with association; indeed, he set motive over against the frequency and contiguity to which the force. of association was attributed at that time. He wrote that his work in psychology "began before World War I with experiments on association" and then went on to explain that his "intention was not to criticize associationism but rather to refine the measurement of the 'strength of the will' "-as developed by Asch, whose work at that time was the most theoretically precise in the field.