THE DISCOVERY OF LAWS 



the next chapter) that they were the first to establish a 



of the form that is specially characteristic of that 



science. Thus of physics, numerical laws (which we shall 



discuss later) are especially characteristic ; Galileo was 



the first to establish a numerical law of the type of which 



almost all modern physics consists ; nine-tenths of the 



: of later physicists in the discovery of laws has been 



simply the extension of laws of Galileo's form to other 



fields of experience. Galileo may fairly be hailed as the 



founder of experimental physics. Other great men have 



so changed or amplified the form, that their work ranks 



i dependent Boyle, and Ampere may claim place in 



tliis class ; but again their fame rests largely on the dis- 



ry of a new type of law which has been simply 



applied elsewhere by lesser men. Of other sciences I am 



Competent to speak, but if Lavoisier is the founder 



iodern chemistry it is because he first established a 



rin that u sserts chemical combination ; and 



if Linnaeus is the founder of systematic botany, it is 



because he first established a law of the form that asserts 



the existence of a particular species of plant. 



This then is really the solution of the main question 

 of this chapter, as it faces the practising student of science. 

 He believes that if he can discover a law of a certain 

 form and order his experience in a certain way then that 

 lict and nature will conform to that order. 

 And so far, at 1 eventeenth century, his 



exp< lias never b inl ; I believe that in 



>ry of modern scienr is no instance ol 



abandonment of a type of law which has once been firmly 

 estat is been continuous ; it has con- 



establishment of many laws of old types, and 

 very occasionally, in the introduction of new types, 

 it first sight experience has contradicted 



i ys been possible (as in 1 1 . , >le of 



the black swan) to remove the contradiction by resolving 



