38 WHAT IS LIFE ? 



production, the larger view we adopt utilizes the forces 

 of Nature as labour-saving and brain-saving powers 

 and to produce human happiness. In a word, to reduce 

 the mental and physical strain now existing. 



The first conception we have to grasp is : what sort 

 of things are we dealing with Avhen we deal with these 

 atomic objects, the existence of which is recognized 

 both by the chemist and physicist ? Both acknowledge 

 that these objects, minute as they are, must occupy 

 space and possess form. 



Now, the physicist bases his ideas almost entirely 

 upon mathematical formula^ substituting arbitrary 

 numbers for the idea of form. And very useful these 

 formulae are within limits, but the system is reasoning 

 by analogy, and not reasoning from the fundamental 

 facts. We venture to assert that we can now arrive at 

 these fundamental facts, in part at least, by experiment, 

 and we assert that our instruments of observation are 

 now equal to solving the problems which we and 

 physicists desire to solve. 



The physicist has the following order of thought : 

 whenever an experiment proves a fact or condition of 

 things, he immediately attempts to give to the fact an 

 arbitrary numerical value, which he does not under" 

 stand. For illustration, he does not know what is 

 meant by " temperature," but he gives an arbitrary 

 numerical value of the unknown in the thermometer. 

 Thus his endeavours are to reduce all natural pheno- 

 mena to what he calls " numerical values," and no 

 doubt these " numerical values " have helped the 

 physicist very much ; but they have had the misfortune 

 of drawing his mind from the fundamental ideas or 

 concepts explaining the facts of Nature. He becomes 



