124 THE ANATOMY OF SCIENCE 



attempt of my own to solve this puzzling ques- 

 tion, I must apologize for presenting something 

 to you which is only now in course of publica- 

 tion^ and therefore has not run the gauntlet of 

 scientific criticism. It may prove to be thor- 

 oughly erroneous. Often a "watcher of the 

 skies" beholds some brilliant nova which later 

 proves to be only a candle on a neighboring 

 hillside. 



Nevertheless, the issues which I wish to pre- 

 sent have a very direct bearing upon the con- 

 cept of time, which we are making almost the 

 central objective of our discussion, and I be- 

 lieve our freedom of thought with respect to 

 this concept will be enlarged by their presenta- 

 tion, even though they later prove to be inade- 

 quate. You will find what I say extremely re- 

 pugnant to common sense, and therefore I am 

 going first of all to remind you how greatly our 

 notion of time has already changed in recent 

 years, by bringing to your attention one of the 

 most spectacular consequences of the special 

 theory of relativity which I have postponed 

 from the third chapter. This consequence, 



*This work has now been published: Proceedings Na- 

 tional Academy of Sciences, 12, 22 (1926); Nature, 117, 

 236 (1926). 



