SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 47 



SCIENCE AND REYELATIOX.* 



By Professor G. G. STOKES, P. E. S, 



ON the present anniversary, whicli is the conclusion of my first year 

 of office as President of this Institute, I propose to address a few 

 words to you bearing on the object of the Institute, and on the spirit 

 in which, as I conceive, that object is best carried out. 



The highest aim of physical science is, as far as may be possible, 

 to refer observed phenomena to their proximate causes. I by no 

 means say that this is the immediate, or even necessarily the ultimate, 

 object of every physical investigation. Sometimes our object is to 

 investigate facts, or to co-ordinate known facts, and endeavor to dis- 

 cover empirical laws. These are useful as far as they go, and may 

 ultimately lead to the formation of theories which in the end so stand 

 the test of what I may call cross-examination by Nature, that we be- 

 come impressed with the conviction of their truth. Sometimes our 

 object is the determination of numerical constants, with a view, it may 

 be, to the practical application of science to the wants of life. 



To illustrate what I am saying, allow me to refer to a very familiar 

 example. From the earliest ages men must have observed the heaven- 

 ly bodies. The great bulk of those brilliant points with which at night 

 the sky is spangled when clouds permit of their being seen, retain the 

 same relative positions night after night and year after year. But a 

 few among them are seen to change their places relatively to the rest 

 and to one another. The fact of this change is embodied in the very 

 name, planet, by which these bodies are designated. I shall say 

 nothing here about the establishment of the Copernican system : I 

 shall assume that as known and admitted. The careful observations 

 of astronomers on the apparent places, from time to time, of these 

 wandering bodies among the fixed stars supplied us, in the first in- 

 stance, with a wide basis of isolated facts. After a vast amount of 

 labor, Kepler at last succeeded in discovering the three famous laws 

 which go by his name . Here, then, we have the second stage ; the 

 vast assemblage of isolated facts are co-ordinated, and embi-aced in a 

 few simple laws. As yet, however, we can not say that the idea of 

 causation has entered in. But now Newton arises, and shows that the 

 very same property of matter which causes an apple to fall to the 

 earth, which causes our own bodies to press on the earth on Avhich we 

 stand, suffices to account for those laws which Kepler discovered — nay, 

 more, those laws themselves are only very approximately true ; and, 

 when we consider the places of the planets, at times separated by a 

 considerable interval, we are obliged to suppose that the elements of 



* Presidential address delivered at the annual meeting of the Victoria Institute, on 

 Tuesday, July 19, 1887. 



