NA TURE 



121 



THURSDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1897. 



SOME UNRECOGNISED LAWS OF NATURE. 



Some Unrecognised Laws of Nature. An Inquiry into 

 the Causes of Physical Phenomena, with Special Re- 

 ference to Gravitation. By Ignatius Singer and Lewis 

 H. Berens. With illustrations. Pp. xvi + 483. 

 (London: John Murray, 1897.) 



"AT last, after years of patient plodding in dim 

 l\. regions, where the footprints are few and the 

 pitfalls many, the time has arrived when we are 

 enabled to place before the world of science the first- 

 fruits of our explorations." 



So say the authors, Messrs. Ignatius Singer and Lewis 

 H. Berens, at the opening of the preface to a handsome 

 volume of nearly 500 octavo pages, published under the 

 above title by Mr. John Murray, and printed in good 

 style by the printer to the University of Oxford.' A 

 subordinate title tells us that it is " an inquiry into the 

 causes of physical phenomena, with special reference to 

 gravitation," and a cursory inspection shows that it is 

 decorated with quotations from great writers and philo- 

 sophers at the head of each chapter, and that it is al- 

 together a most ambitious work, courting the widest and 

 closest attention. 



The present reviewer is not one to regard lightly the 

 danger of summarily rejecting a germ of new discovery 

 because it happens to conflict with orthodox opinions, 

 nor has he failed to have borne in upon him the con- 

 viction that there are indeed many real laws of nature 

 at present unrecognised, some unsuspected, others 

 scouted, by contemporary science. 



It is, therefore, in no spirit of levity that he finds it 

 his duty to state not only that the present volume con- 

 tains much that is plainly and simply trash, he has to 

 state further that, so far as he has been able to judge, 

 there is nothing in it of the slightest value from cover 

 to cover. 



The former of these statements it is easy to justify by 

 quotation ; the latter may very likely be considered by 

 the authors as an unfounded individual opinion typical 

 of the arrogance of every professed physicist with 

 regard to any novel view of the universe which 

 may be brought to his notice. It is, however, difficult 

 to imagine what manner of men these authors can be, 

 nor how it happens that writers so conspicuously 

 ignorant of the elements of physics, beyond what 

 they have culled from a superficial acquaintance with 

 a few popular books, should yet think fit to over- 

 flow in a wordy and pretentious volume, controverting 

 many of the best-established scientific truths, criticising 

 lightly the acknowledged masters of science, and setting 

 forth a quantity of false philosophy and misappre- 

 hended facts with a flourish as if a new Principia were 

 being given to the world. Who, again, are the readers 

 of such a book ? It has been most respectfully received 

 in some quarters. Can it be that the state of school 

 education in England is such that any considerable 



1 We do not hereby intend to imply that the University of Oxford is 

 .responsible for, or cognisant of, the production ; but we do think that some 

 care should be taken not to let its imprimatur be even apparently affixed 

 to such a book as the one before us. 



NO. 1467, VOL. 57] 



number of men of letters or of philosophy, or any other 

 branch of study, find themselves able to accept such a 

 book as this as containing possibly as good and sound 

 science as, let us say, Thomson and Tait ? Neither 

 work is by them really read ; perhaps both works seem 

 to them nearly on a par. Perhaps they think that since 

 Thomson and Tait and Helmholtz and Newton are all 

 adversely criticised in the work before us, it is very likely 

 true that the pretended facts of our boasted science are 

 all uncertain fictions, and that the authorised scientific 

 version of to-day is little better than a mass of hypo- 

 thetical dogma. 



If any such suspicion is in the slightest degree pos- 

 sible among the members of so-called educated society, 

 it means that we are, after all, not far away from the 

 dark ages ; the death of a comparatively few individuals 

 would perhaps loosen the grip of the human race on the 

 truths of science, and plunge us once more into pre- 

 Galilean ignorance. It is to be wondered if there are 

 not more than a few who would welcome the change. 



If the book is really an isolated phenomenon, it is as 

 insignificant as the customary production of those para- 

 doxers who were so delightfully gibbeted years ago by 

 De Morgan ; but it has not the usual air of the work 

 of the paradoxer : the first half, at any rate, may easily 

 impose upon the unwary as being a serious and sober 

 attempt to solve perplexing problems, and contribute to 

 the progress of natural knowledge. Sober and serious 

 in intention we doubt not that it is, we do not suppose 

 that the authors are playing off a conscious and expensive 

 hoax ; but, without the slightest desire to be abusive, we 

 must maintain our view that a very small ingredient of 

 common modesty would have prevented their shouting 

 out their ignorance to the world — would have withheld 

 them, with their little pittance of popular knowledge, 

 from " undertaking to write the whole body of physicks," 

 as Montaigne has it. 



However, it is only fair now that we give some idea 

 of the scope of the book, and that we make from it some 

 illustrative extracts, so as to justify the terms of strictly 

 measured depreciation which we have been constrained 

 to use in our attempt to estimate it truly. 



The four great fundamental and universal laws of 

 nature, according to Mr. Singer (we are told in a note at 

 the end of the preface that the science and philosophy of 

 the work are exclusively due to Mr. Singer), are Persist- 

 ence, Resistance, Reciprocity, and Equalisation. 



The law of persistence is thus worded : "All matter 

 tends to persevere in whatever state it may happen to be, 

 and to resist change " ; merely a simple and vague 

 parody of part of the first law of motion, but it is in- 

 tended to be much more comprehensive, and to include 

 among other things such a statement as the following : 

 "All organisms have a tendency to preserve their 

 structure, organs, functions, habits, and dispositions 

 unchanged." 



As to " Resistance," we are told that it is the same 

 thing as Persistence, and constitutes its quantitative 

 measure ; so the law of resistance, if it were to be stated 

 definitely, would become a part of Newton's second law. 

 The authors, however, rather avoid definite statements, 

 and prefer nouns in capitals or italics, as if such nouns were 

 laws of nature. By " Reciprocity " seems to be meant 



G 



