TENDENCIES OF MODERN PHYSICS 39 



assume that the new methods of attack which have 

 arisen are essentially different from the thoughts and 

 speculations of former physicists and not subject to 

 their failure. This idea is brought out by Mr. Camp- 

 bell in his recent book on Modern Electrical Theory, 

 when he contrasts the work of Faraday, about 1830, 

 and his predecessors with that of living physicists: 

 " Men of his own and of the preceding era had founded 

 'natural philosophy'; they had made discoveries and 

 had elaborated theories which still form part of the 

 frame-work of the physical sciences. But their work 

 has little interest for us to-day. Their aims, their con- 

 ceptions, their whole attitude toward the problems 

 which they investigated differ so widely from our own, 

 that, while their results may be the basis of modern re- 

 search, their methods afford little inspiration for it." 

 This is far from being the case; if we can assign 

 definite periods to so continuous a development as the 

 history of science has shown, we should certainly date 

 modern physics from the seventeenth century when 

 Galileo introduced experimental methods and Des- 

 cartes applied analytical geometry to physics: human 

 thought does not progress at this late day by cutting 

 loose from the past ; especially when that past is said 

 to date from the middle of the nineteenth century. 

 Where the " new views " are not merely statistical 

 observations or fugitive models of some particular 

 phenomenon that is, where there is a philosophical 



