76 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



port it with unquestioned facts and the most painstaking argument ought 

 to be looked upon as either a trifler, a charlatan or a well-intentioned in- 

 competent. Since I do not court being listed under any of these heads I 

 must state, as briefly as possible, the exact nature of the offense which, 

 as I believe, physics has committed. Stated in the most general terms, 

 it is against the natural history mode of viewing nature ; or to carry the 

 statement one step farther toward specificity, it consists in a violation of 

 certain essential principles of observation, description, designation and 

 classification which are so obviously the very foundation of the natural 

 historian's "world." Or, expressed still more positively, physics has 

 become over-mathematicized, and has concentrated its gaze too exclu- 

 sively on a few attributes of what it calls matter, or substance. What I 

 mean by being over-mathematicized is not that mathematics has been 

 applied too widely or exactly to physico-chemical problems, but that the 

 reasonings of pure mathematics, that is, mathematics as a purely sub- 

 jective process and without reference to its application to objective 

 reality, has been too exclusively relied on in the formulation of general 

 theories. Not sufficient restraint in theorizing has been exercised, in 

 view of the fact that the " probable error " involved in all physical experi- 

 mentation contains two chances of error, the one wholly manipulative; 

 that is, dependent upon imperfections of apparatus or methods; while 

 the other, and from the present standpoint, far more important chance 

 of error is that of undiscovered factors in the phenomena themselves 

 which are being investigated. 



A physiologist of deservedly great distinction has expressed the view 

 that just as "the constitution of matter is the main problem of the 

 physicist, the constitution of living matter is the main problem of the 

 biologist." I want to call attention to the fact that " matter " with it3 

 connotations in the above statements is, historically, a poetic fancy ; and 

 further that it is merely a convenient symbol or fiction when considered 

 from the standpoint of truly objective or observational science. Glance 

 at the subject historically first. You hardly need be reminded that the 

 conception of matter has come down to us from the ancient Latin poet 

 Lucretius who sets forth his views with sufficient elaboration in his 

 great poem " Concerning the Nature of Things " ; and that he in turn 

 got the idea from certain Greek philosopher-poets, more particularly 

 Democritus. While Lucretius undoubtedly had much of the spirit of 

 genuine objective science, no modern who studies his work and reflects 

 on the influence it has had on subsequent literature and philosophy and 

 science should forget for a moment that, as concerns methods and results 

 of actual positive science, it was quite impossible for him to be more 

 than mildly scientific ; nor forget that his interests were primarily poetic 

 rather than scientific. What he was aiming to satisfy was not so much 

 man's observational and rational nature as his own emotional nature. 

 His undertaking is well characterized by a recent writer in this way : 



