Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 



may have a long way to go along his " straight 

 line " before he discovers that it is a curve ; he 

 may have much farther to go along his curve 

 before he discovers that it is not a circle ; and 

 much farther still to go before he finds out whe- 

 ther it is an ellipse or a spiral or a parabola, or 

 none of these ; yet what curve it is will make 

 an enormous difference in his ultimate destination. 

 So with the astronomer ; and yet Astronomy is 

 allowed to pass as an exact science ! ^ 



Well then, as in Astronomy we get an " exact 



' As another instance of the same thing, let me quote a passage 

 from Maxwell's Theory of Heat, p. 3 1 ; the italics are mine : 

 " In our description of the physical properties of bodies as related 

 to heat we have begun with solid bodies, as those which we can 

 most easily handle, and have gone on to liquids, which we can 

 keep in open vessels, and have now come to gases, which will 

 escape from open vessels, and which are generally invisible. This 

 is the order which is most natural in our first study of these different 

 states. But as soon as we have been made familiar with the most 

 prominent features of these different conditions of matter the most 

 scientific course of study is in the reverse order, beginning with gases, 

 on account of the greater simplicity of their laws, then advancing 

 to liquids, the more complex laws of which are much more im- 

 perfectly known, and concluding with the little that has been hitherto 

 discovered about the constitution of solid bodies." That is to 

 say that Science finds it easier to work among gases — which are 

 invisible and which we can know little about — than among solids, 

 which we are familiar with and which we can easily handle ! 

 This seems a strange conclusion, but it will be found to represent 

 a common procedure of Science — the truth probably being that 

 the laws of gases are not one whit simpler than the laws of liquids 

 and solids, but that on account of our knowing so much less about 

 gases it is easier for us io feign laws in their case than in the case 

 of solids, and less easy for our errors to be detected. 



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