THE DOGMA OF EVOLUTION 



force rather than reason. It is, at least, worth while 

 to say that physicists are not a party to this extension 

 of their field to include the phenomena of life. 



The physicist deals with a fairly definite problem; 

 he deals with this problem in a definite way and, in 

 order to be definite, he abstracts from his problem all 

 phenomena which he cannot measure in terms of 

 mass, length, and time. For example : when he studies 

 light and sound, he expresses both phenomena by a 

 single equation which involves only the energy of mo- 

 tion and ignores the fact that to us, by our sense per- 

 ception, they are fundamentally different. Thus the 

 world is reduced to substance, matter or electricity, 

 whose only properties are inertia and a mutual force 

 of attraction. Force has but one property, that of pro- 

 ducing motion, thus force accounts for the form of 

 bodies and is measured by the change of motion it 

 produces. When a portion of matter is displaced by 

 force, we express that phenomenon by the term, en- 

 ergy. The energy of a body is thus measured as the 

 product of a force and the distance the body moves 

 under the action of the force or, what amounts to the 

 same quantity, by one-half the mass times the square 

 of its velocity. And energy in physics means nothing 

 else. 



It may well be objected that the physicist has no 

 right to limit the words, force and energy, to such a 

 special meaning; because, when we speak of force of 

 character or of an energetic mind, we convey a defin- 



C 250 3 



