16 INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 



external world is inscrutable, and we shall only plunge into 

 a quagmire of indescribables. Never mind what two tons 

 refers to; what is it? How has it actually entered in so 

 definite a way into our experience? Two tons is the reading 

 of the pointer when the elephant was placed on a weighing- 

 machine. Let us pass on. 'The slope of the hill is 60°.' Now 

 the hillside fades out of the problem and an angle of 60° 

 takes its place. What is 60°? There is no need to struggle 

 with mystical conceptions of direction; 60° is the reading of 

 a plumb-line against the divisions of a protractor. Similarly 

 for the other data of the problem. The softly yielding turf 

 on which the elephant slid is replaced by a coefficient of 

 friction, which though perhaps not directly a pointer read- 

 ing is of kindred nature. . . . And so we see that the poetry 

 fades out of the problem, and by the time the serious appli- 

 cation of exact science begins we are left with only pointer 

 readings. . . . The whole subject-matter of exact science 

 consists of pointer readings and similar indications." l 



What, then, is left for the philosopher? The philosopher 

 must tell us about elephants and hillsides and ponderosity, 

 or, more generally, about colors, sounds, odors, tastes, and 

 touch sensations, and the complexes called "objects' into 

 which they are united. But he must describe these in quali- 

 tative terms, not in measured values. Though red may be 

 measured by a wave length, red is not the wave length; 

 there is something in the qualitative given which eludes 

 analysis and quantification. Science abstracts from objects, 

 and by this act loses an important feature of them. The 

 artist, the religious man, the mystic all try to capture this 

 elusive element, each in his own way; but all of these ways 

 are essentially emotional and irrational. The philosopher 

 must pursue this qualitative element by rational techniques. 

 The philosopher must restore to the world its expansiveness 

 and durational character, which the scientist has replaced 

 by meter sticks and clocks; he must repopulate it with 



1 From A. S. Eddington, Nature of the Physical World, pp. 251-252. By permis- 

 sion of The Macmillan Company, publishers. 



