NEW CONCEPTIONS IN SCIENCE 



the French prefer to call mecanique chimique - 

 chemical mechanics. And, finally, the whole do- 

 main of physics electricity, heat, light, magnet- 

 ism is coming under the bondage of one or two 

 mechanical conceptions, a mechanics of the ether, 

 or a mechanics of ultimate particles, the corpuscles, 1 

 which are both matter and electricity at once. Per- 

 haps eventually it will come to a compromise be- 

 tween the two. Either way, mechanics reigns. Me- 

 chanical conceptions are everywhere. " The stone 

 which the builders rejected is become the head of 

 the corner." 



The end and aim of all scientific endeavor is to 

 describe natural phenomena, including all visible 

 and invisible things matter, life, and mind by 

 simple mechanical laws, expressible in simple math- 

 ematical equations. We are yet very far from this 

 several hundred years, perhaps. A mathematical 

 formula is as rare in a work on physiology to-day 

 as it was in a work on physics a hundred years ago. 

 In the stuff that passes for psychology it is not to 

 be found at all. 



But no one who has once gained a clear historical 

 perspective may doubt the final result. Physical 

 science will not stop short of a reduction of the 

 universe and all it contains to the basis of me- 



'See "The Explanation of Electricity," p. 131; and "The 

 Search for Primal Matter," p. 145. 



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