Library. ) 



CORRELATION 



OF 



PHYSICAL FORCES. 



WHEN natural phenomena are for the first time observed, a 

 tendency immediately developes itself to refer them to some- 

 thing 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 already 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-ordinates 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 possibility, 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 

 and dangerous attempt at remodelling the public ideas, is 

 generally enunciated by the discoverers themselves of the 

 facts, or by those to whose authority the world at the period 

 of the discovery defers ; others are not bold enough, or if 

 they be so, are unheeded. The earliest theories thus enun- 

 ciated obtain the firmest hold upon the public mind, for at 



