NA TURE 



25 



THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1900. 



SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE. 

 Genese de la Matiere et de rEnergie— Formation et Fin 

 dun Monde. Par A. Despaux, Ingenieur des Arts et 

 Manufactures. Pp.232. (Paris : F^lix Alcan, 1900.) 



THERE are two classes of writers whose works on 

 scientific subjects possess little or no intrinsic 

 scientific value. The first consists of those who, carrying 

 their distrust of rational authority even beyond the 

 bounds of sanity, run headlong against established 

 modes of thought, and lose themselves in a maze of 

 paradox. To the second class belong authors who, while 

 they show no outward disrespect for the accepted 

 elements of orthodox philosophy, have neither the 

 patience nor the ability to pursue the arduous paths 

 which lead to truth, but with a courage born of want of 

 knowledge of the real difficulties take their own way 

 tinder the treacherous guidance of blind intuition. 



The rapidity of their progress is astonishing, but 

 whether it has an end worth reaching may in general be 

 questioned. The cautious critic finds these excursions 

 difficult to follow, and he therefore has a natural ten- 

 dency perhaps to do them less than justice. But it may 

 be proper to insist here on the fact that it is of little 

 use even to blunder on a truth unless care be taken to 

 free it from all that is doubtful, and to place it in a 

 convincing light. Failure in this respect constitutes a 

 serious objection to the intuitive method as exemplified 

 by the book under review. 



To the representatives of intuitive as opposed to more 

 scientific methods the borderland of the known in science 

 offers great opportunities. In particular, the problems 

 of cosmogony and molecular physics seem to possess a 

 singular fascination for this type of mind. It seems to 

 matter little that these problems present the very greatest 

 difficulties, of which the mere exact formulation is not 

 to be undertaken lightly, and which seem to demand for 

 their solution a mastery over so wide a range of experi- 

 mental fact and so great a power in the use of mathe- 

 matical analysis as to have baffled hitherto the most 

 gifted investigators. Indeed, it is being realised more 

 and more how inadequate is the store of facts and how 

 great the need, probably, of an entirely new machinery 

 of analysis. And yet how petty are our discussions, for 

 instance, of the propriety of employing the principle of 

 Action, how futile our doubts about the appropriateness 

 of certain mechanical models to represent ethereal opera- 

 tions 1 Our intuitive philosophers, as we have said, are 

 ready at one bound to surmount such pedantic obstacles, 

 and why should we not follow them ? 



The mere title of this book seems to give some justi- 

 fication for suspecting that M. Despaux is not quite inno- 

 cent of those heretical methods to which we have alluded. 

 Within the modest compass of 232 octavo pages he 

 attempts to explain the origin and nature of matter and 

 energy, the constitution of the molecule, gravitation, 

 many fundamental questions in physics, such as radiant 

 energy and electricity, and, in addition to all this, the 

 formation of the solar system. The scheme is so 

 ambitious that the conclusion seems inevitable that the 



NO. I 6 19, VOL 63] 



author has failed to realise the stupendous difficulties to 

 be overcome. And this impression, which is fully con- 

 firmed on reading his book, makes it impossible to con- 

 sider it very seriously. The phenomena to which the 

 author refers are only such as must be well known even 

 to the most elementary student of physics, and if M. 

 Despaux has any claims to be considered a mathe- 

 matician, his modesty has led him to conceal the fact 

 most scrupulously. 



The reader of the book quickly finds that in order to 

 follow the author closely he must gain some idea of 

 M. Despaux' views on the nature of the ether and of the 

 atom. The former he considers as the vehicle necessary 

 for the transference of energy in an undulatory form. Up 

 to a certain point his notions of wave motion are clear 

 and well expressed. Unfortunately, they are as re- 

 stricted as those of a century ago, and are in effect con- 

 fined to waves of the condensational-rarefractional type. 

 The result is that the author describes the ether as a 

 discontinuous medium, possessing in some measure the 

 qualities of a gas, thus ignoring all the difficulties which 

 arise from the phenomena of polarisation. On the other 

 hand, his general, views on the meaning of action at a 

 distance, and on the ether as the true energy medium, 

 are much more satisfactory and consistent with modern 

 ideas. It is more difficult to follow M. Despaux' 

 suggestions as to the nature of the atom. We gather 

 that there is an essential unity between all kinds of 

 matter, and that all atoms are intrinsically alike. They 

 are the seat of kinetic energy, and appear to be differen- 

 tiated only by their particular modes of motion. The 

 energy gives rise to vibrations of two types of which one 

 becomes apparent in the form of radiant energy, while 

 the other causes the effect of mutual gravitation and 

 chemical affinity. But lest we should misrepresent his 

 thoughts, we may quote M. Despaux' own words — 



" La gravitation est due k la rotation helicoidale des 

 atomes ou molecules qui produit une translation dans 

 I'ether ; sans rotation, pas de gravite, les corps seraient 

 sans poids, sans chaleur, sans couleur, . . . Ce qui carac- 

 t^rise la matiere, c'est en effet le mouvement des atomes 

 bien plus que les atomes eux-memes centres de ces 

 mouvements. . . . En resume, contrairement aux idees 

 regues, nous estimons que la masse d'un corps depend 

 moins du nombre des molecules que de leur vitesse de 

 rotation. — Toutes les energies mettant en jeu les 

 attractions et les repulsions sont de meme nature que la 

 gravitation" (pp. 94, 95). 



Now the implied connection between gravitation and 

 heat is as repugnant to our ideas as the caloric theory of 

 heat itself ; for the former involves an identification o 

 mass with energy which is as objectionable as the con- 

 fusion of a form of energy with matter in the latter. The 

 grounds of objection are, in fact, precisely the same in 

 both cases. The origin of the heresy is to be found in 

 M. Despaux' incapacity to realise the meaning of mass 

 as a distinct entity. He professes carefully to eschew all 

 arguments which appear to him of a metaphysical nature, 

 and yet fails to see that the discussion of fundamental 

 physical conceptions really belongs to the domain of 

 metaphysics. It is distinctly a pity that he has virtually 

 exceeded the limits of his purpose, for his qualifications 

 as a philosopher seem to be inferior even to his equip- 

 ment as a physicist. 



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