ANALYSIS OF SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS 247 



represents so many centimeters per second. The presump- 

 tion of this view is that an entity can enter into physical 

 science only if it can be measured; physics talks only about 

 quantities, not about qualities. The outcome of the view is 

 that the subject matter of physics is pointer readings, a posi- 

 tion which has been made prominent in recent years by Ed- 

 dington. * Time then becomes identified with clock-readings, 

 space with readings on meter sticks, force with readings on 

 spring balances, and so on. But what should be remembered 

 is that this does not reduce time, space, and force to mere 

 numbers; time is the number obtained from a clock, but a 

 clock is different from a meter stick and a spring balance, 

 hence the nature of the instrument must be taken into con- 

 sideration in defining the measured value. This means 

 that the actual techniques of using the clock in an experimen- 

 tal set-up, and even the techniques employed in making the 

 clock in the first place, are part of the definitions of the 

 measured values. This makes the reduction of physics to 

 mathematics impossible. Physics is meaningless apart from 

 clocks, meter sticks, and spring balances, and all of these 

 instruments must be constructed and calibrated by percep- 

 tual differences in qualitative experiences. To lose these 

 qualitative aspects in the abstractions of science is to make 

 them essentially meaningless. 



The problem here involved is very complex, and cannot 

 be solved at this point. 2 What should be stated is merely 

 the point of view which will be taken in the ensuing chapters. 

 In what follows the concepts will not be taken at the high 

 level of abstraction which reduces them to mere numbers. 

 Recognition must always be made of the fact that the 

 number is a measured value of something, and this something 

 must be retained in a qualitative form. This is to deny not 

 the legitimacy of measurement, but only the exhaustiveness 

 of the reduction of quantity to quality. The distinctions 



1 See below, Chapter XX. 



2 See A. C. Benjamin, Logical Structure of Science (London: Kegan Paul, 1936), 

 Chap. XIV. 



