CLASSICAL AND NEW MECHANICS 151 



phenomena to the generalization of these phenomena in 

 comprehensive and rigorous laws. In such a classi- 

 fication, sociology or the study of existing society oc- 

 cupies the lowest rank, since true laws can be derived 

 only from actions whose completed consequences are 

 known. Sociology therefore attempts to found its 

 laws on the data of history, the study of past society; 

 history must in the same way rely on psychology, 

 which deals with the actions of the individuals of 

 society; psychology relies on biology; biology, on 

 chemistry; chemistry, on physics; and physics, on pure 

 mathematics. While each science thus strives to found 

 its laws on the conclusions of the following science, 

 each succeeds only partially; this leads us to a paradox. 

 The goal of science is mathematics, and while mathe- 

 matics may be said to be the only true science since it 

 has the only true scientific method, mathematics is not 

 a science because it deals with abstractions and ignores 

 concrete phenomena. 



As stated before, all quantities in mechanics may 

 be expressed by combining the fundamental units, 

 length, mass, and time, in simple ratios and products. 

 And, while the phenomena of light, heat, and elec- 

 tricity do not manifest themselves qualitatively to 

 our senses in any manner which may be coordinated 

 with mechanical actions, yet we endeavor to measure 

 them quantitatively in physics as if they were wholly 

 mechanical in nature. Thus we speak of the velocity 



