Since the early days of humankind, people have been asking questions about Nature of two kinds: why did that happen? And how can that be used? In a broad sense, science was born that day. We show indeed that science has two complementary and interdependent souls that aim, respectively, to how to understand and how to control Nature. Through a broad historical analysis, this essay aims to (1) give an account of the development of science as an oscillation and an interplay between its two intrinsic natures, (2) demonstrate that this happened already in ancient times starting from the 6th century BC, and (3) the fact that in different periods one of the two natures was largely favored over the other is a consequence of science being a cultural product of the different social-historical contexts.

自人类诞生之初，人们就一直在问有关自然的两类问题：为什么会发生这种情况？以及如何使用它？从广义上讲，科学就在那一天诞生了。我们确实表明，科学有两个互补且相互依存的灵魂，分别致力于如何理解和如何控制自然。通过广泛的历史分析，本文旨在 (1) 将科学的发展描述为科学的两种内在本质之间的振荡和相互作用，(2) 证明这种情况在公元前 6 世纪开始的古代就已经发生了，（3）事实上，在不同时期，两种性质中的一种在很大程度上优于另一种，这是科学作为不同社会历史背景的文化产物的结果。