THE ARBITER OF ETHICS 221 



as to conform to them. Thus the phenomena and laws 

 of light continue to unfold themselves in a consistent 

 progress in spite of the fact that now one, and now 

 another, contradictory hypothesis of the mechanism of 

 light and its transmission through space is uppermost. 

 This is the explanation of the reason, so puzzling to 

 the layman, why two conflicting hypotheses, explaining 

 the same class of phenomena, can be maintained and 

 cultivated at the same time. There is no telling when 

 new facts will be discovered which will bring an al- 

 most discarded hypothesis back into favor. The fic- 

 titious worlds of natural science bear a close analogy 

 to those hypergeometrical realms of the mathematician 

 which, while logical and interesting, do not rest on 

 experience and so do not exist. Such mathematical 

 worlds of the imagination are invented as a sort of 

 intellectual game and can have no influence on human 

 actions and society; so also the hypothetical properties 

 ascribed to nature by the physicist cannot affect our 

 relations to our environment. 



This neglect of the critical field by men of science 

 has resulted in leaving to metaphysicians the discus- 

 sion of scientific methods and the development of what 

 now passes under the name of scientific philosophy. 

 Whatever the influence of this criticism may have been 

 on philosophy and on thought generally, it is safe to 

 say that it has had little on science; its conclusions 

 have not engaged the attention of men of science very 



