CLASSICAL AND NEW MECHANICS 163 



able matter and in common with it have the character- 

 istic of inertia." One has merely to ask, what becomes 

 of these self-existing things when light ceases to go 

 through a certain space and it slips back into its state 

 of vacuity? 



Without going into details, we find a like trend in 

 the hypothesis of the nature of matter. It began with 

 the atom as a minute simulacrum of ponderable bodies, 

 and then we proceeded to strip away one concrete at- 

 tribute after another until for a brief interval matter 

 was a manifestation of an entity, electricity. But 

 even this idea was too concrete, too material, to serve 

 and now the objective universe is the symbol, energy. 



If we finally subscribe to these ideas, are we not 

 really acknowledging that hypothetical science has 

 failed as the interpreter of an objective world? It 

 seems to me the guides to knowledge are now to be 

 found in those subjective impressions which must 

 depend on the individual and vary with him. Scientific 

 laws are thus not facts to be discovered but the tempo- 

 rary consensus of opinion of a number of individuals 

 who, for the time being, find themselves in agreement. 

 The classical natural philosophy of Newton and Gali- 

 leo has drifted into that transcendental symbolism 

 which is apt to take place when German thinkers be- 

 come the leaders in philosophy. 



Evidently an almost chaotic condition had de- 

 veloped in our ideas of space, matter, and electricity. 



