380 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



is still more or less accustomed to think in the manner of 

 Newton's view of nature, in which the supposition of 

 forces acting at a distance appears as the most simple 

 view: we feel it difficult to step out of this circle of 

 ideas." x Nevertheless, the country itself which produced 



1 Kundt, ' Die neuere Entwick- 

 lung der Electricitatslehre ' (Berlin, 

 1891, p. 35). This habit is prob- 

 ably more marked on the Continent 

 than in England. In this country 

 the later developments of Laplace's 

 astronomical view of nature have 

 remained unknown except to a few 

 scientific specialists. Through Fara- 

 day's influence, and in consequence 

 of the backwardness which the 

 English school of science exhibited 

 early in the century in assimilating 

 Continental ideas (see p. 232, note), 

 theoretical views on electricity as 

 well as on other forms of energy 

 were formed and taught more in 

 conformity with experimental ob- 

 servation. I am not aware that 

 Weber's theory was expounded in 

 any English text-book or handbook 

 before Maxwell referred to it as the 

 view to which Faraday and he him- 

 self were opposed. In fact, the 

 astronomical view of molecular 

 physics is almost entirely of foreign 

 growth. In England " action at a 

 distance" is now stigmatised as a 

 pernicious heresy (Tait, ' Properties 

 of Matter,' 2nd ed., 1890, Introduc- 

 tion) or as unthinkable (0. Lodge, 

 ' Modern Views of Electricity,' 

 1892, p. 386, &c.) Abroad weighty 

 authorities have pronounced against 

 the astronomical view of nature as 

 final or even helpful in the present 

 stage of physical and chemical 

 science. Helmholtz, who was 

 trained in it, gradually emanci- 

 pated himself, probably under the 

 influence of physiological studies ; 

 so did Kirchhoff, who in his lectures 

 on Electricity (edited by Planck, 

 1891) hardly mentions Weber's law, 



though he had previously, in 1857, 

 based an elaborate and valuable 

 investigation upon it (' Ueber die 

 Bewegung der Electricitat in Drah- 

 ten,' ' Gesammelte Abhandlungen,' 

 p. 131, &c.) Still more marked is 

 the aversion to the attitude or 

 habit of thought which belongs to 

 the astronomical view of nature on 

 the part of those who approached 

 physical problems from the side of 

 chemistry. Hittorf (quoted by 

 Lehmann, ' Molecularphysik,' vol. ii. 

 p. 456) explains the opposition of 

 Berzelius to Faraday's electrolytic 

 law and to his other results from 

 the fact that they stood in direct 

 opposition to that view " which at 

 the end of the last century had 

 been introduced into chemistry 

 through the success of Newton's 

 law in astronomy, and under the 

 influence of Laplace on Lavoisier 

 and Berthollet," and sees the im- 

 portance of his own laborious 

 researches in the demonstration 

 "that the mysterious potential 

 energy cannot in the case of un- 

 combined chemical substances be 

 explained by the work of attractive 

 forces," and "that a confession of 

 ignorance in such matters is more 

 conducive to progress than the as- 

 sertion that every process in nature 

 is essentially a phenomenon of at- 

 traction in the Newtonian sense." 

 Of Ostwald's endeavours to liberate 

 theoretical views in chemistry from 

 the tyranny of the older hypotheses 

 I shall have frequent occasion to 

 speak. His discourse ' Die Energie 

 und ihre Wandlungen ' (Leipzig, 

 1888) contains an expression of 

 opinion similar to those quoted here. 



