INFLUENCE ON RECENT SCIENCE 71 



thing above ordinary criticism, into the scientific 

 definition of a fluid. We have also constructed a sym- 

 bolic language, called mathematical analysis, whose 

 characters and terms are so removed from ordinary 

 speech that it imposes on our minds an impression of 

 not being limited by the bounds of logic. Thus, if we 

 derive a mathematical formula for the quantity of 

 heat or electrical energy which passes through free 

 space, we deceive ourselves by thinking that we have 

 an expression not only for a quantity of energy, but 

 that also we have in some unaccountable way gained 

 a knowledge of the nature of energy and of the at- 

 tributes of space. And we slur over the scientific 

 axiom, that since these mathematical symbols did not 

 express in the beginning something concrete, they can- 

 not after any manipulation give a result which is other 

 than imaginative. Again, we postulate some entity 

 such as matter, energy, or electricity, as a foundation 

 and attempt to derive logically from it all the phe- 

 nomena of nature, and ignore the plain fact that 

 nature, as a whole, reveals itself to us as a succession 

 of events, either not connected at all in a logical se- 

 quence of cause and effect, or at least in such an intri- 

 cate tangle as to defy our powers of analysis. 



During the last two decades, there have been dis- 

 covered an unusually large number of physical phe- 

 nomena, and it is no exaggeration to say that we have 

 mastered them with surprising rapidity and with great 



