COKKELATION 



OP 

 PHYSICAL FOEOES 



L INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 



WHEN natural phenomena are for the first ti_ne ob 

 served, a tendency immediately developes itself to 

 refer them to something previously known to bring them 

 within the range of acknowledged sequences. The mode of 

 regarding new facts, which is most favourably received by 

 the public, is that which refers them to recognised views 

 stamps them into the mould in which the mind has been al 

 ready shaped. The new fact may be far removed from those 

 to which it is referred, and may belong to a different order 

 of analogies, but this cannot then be known, as its co-ordi 

 nates are wanting. It may be questionable whether the 

 mind is not so moulded by past events that it is impossible 

 to advance an entirely new view, but admitting such possi 

 bility, the new view, necessarily founded on insufficient data, 

 is likely to be more incorrect and prejudicial than even a 

 strained attempt to reconcile the new discovery with known 

 facts. 



The theory consequent upon new facts, whether it be a 

 co-ordination of them with known ones, or the more difficult 



