COKKELATION 



OF 



PHYSICAL FOEOES. 



L INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 



WHEN natural phenomena are for the first time 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 

 1* 



