''SOME UNRECOGNIZED LAV/S OF NATURE:' 777 



been made at it, have never been taken seriously enough to merit 

 the name of theory. With the strictly orthodox, indeed, the cause 

 of gravitation is no longer open to discussion. It has been rele- 

 gated once for all to the region of the unknowable. A book, there- 

 fore, which throughout five hundred pages not only proposes to 

 discuss this forbidden problem, but also professes to solve it, will 

 attract attention for its boldness, if for nothing else. One begins 

 to read with large sense of expectation. 



The volume is divided into four books, which deal respectively 

 with methods of inquiry ; with first principles ; with phenomenol- 

 ogy, or " the interconvertibility of forces " ; and finally with grav- 

 itation. All the books seem to us of value. They have been 

 arranged with considerable cleverness, for the effect is cumu- 

 lative. 



The first book is largely psychological. Its main content has to 

 do with methods of inquiry and of verification, and with sources 

 of error. It maintains, and we think very properly, that our 

 greatest need at the present time is a revision of our concex^tions 

 rather than any further confirmation of our observational or ex- 

 perimental data. In all cases the causes of phenomena are infer- 

 ential, and are necessarily colored by our prior conceptions along 

 the same lines of inquiry. Our stock in trade, when we come to 

 philosophize, is simply the report of our own imperfect senses, 

 helped or hindered, as the case may be, by our equally imperfect 

 reasoning. The same facts may come into different minds, but 

 they have far from equivalent values. It is comparatively easy 

 to agree about the facts, but far from easy to agree about their 

 interpretation. The interpretation is necessarily subjective, and 

 is conditioned by many factors outside the phenomena them- 

 selves. Remembering this, one will be disposed to agree with 

 the authors that apparent absurdity is not a legitimate refuta- 

 tion of any new and strange theory. It is only the absence of 

 similar conceptions that makes the new view absurd. Nor does 

 the correspondence of any theoretical view with prior conceptions 

 offer the least confirmation of the view itself. Its agreement with 

 preconceived ideas may prevent its seeming absurd, but does not 

 prevent its being untrue. The so-called "confirmations" of phi- 

 losophy and science will always bear re-examinatiou, indeed de- 

 mand such periodical re-examination, and the more so in propor- 

 tion to their seeming certainty. The shores of the ocean of truth 

 are thickly strewn with the wrecks of many a fair theory, as 

 beloved in its day as the most cherished beliefs of our own day. 

 Equally true is it that agreement between phenomena and theory, 

 however perfect it may be, is not confirmation, for it is to be 

 remembered that the theory itself was deduced from these very 

 phenomena. The argument that such agreement constitutes proof 



