NATURE 



97 



THURSDAY, JUNE 2, 1892. 



THE GRAMMAR OF SCIENCE. 

 The Grammar of Science. By Karl Pearson, M.A., Sir 

 Thomas Gresham's Professor of Geometry. "The 

 Contemporary Science Series." (London : Walter 

 Scott, 1892.) 



ONE chief merit of this book is its exposition of the 

 meaning of scientific law. There still exists, un- 

 fortunately, a type of mind which delights in such phrases 

 as " the reign of law," the " immutable laws of Nature," 

 and so on. The truly scientific mind has, however, been 

 long familiar with the truth that a so-called law of Nature 

 is simply a convenient formula for the co-ordination of a 

 certain range of phenomena. It is this which Prof. Pear- 

 son so emphatically, if somewhat redundantly, expounds 

 in the earlier chapters of the " Grammar." As he delights 

 in putting it, a scientific law is a description in mental 

 shorthand of certain sequences of sense-impressions. 

 Through these sense-impressions alone can we gain any 

 knowledge of what we are accustomed to call the ex- 

 ternal world. Thus the Universe as pictured by the 

 scientific mind is a purely mental product. We can 

 assert, scientifically, nothing regarding its constitution 

 other than what we may validly infer from our percep- 

 tions and the conceptions based on these ; and even then 

 we must never forget that the reality to us is conditioned 

 wholly by our powers of perception. This is the grand 

 argument of the grammarian of science. 



In developing his theme he introduces not a few 

 interesting questions and analogies. Take, for example, 

 his comparison of the brain to a telephone exchange. 

 Here Reason, presiding as clerk, finds by experience 

 i that a certain subscriber always desires to correspond 

 with a certain other subscriber. As soon as the call- 

 bell from the former sounds, the clerk mechanically links 

 him to the latter. "This corresponds to an habitual 

 exertion following unconsciously on a sense-impression." 

 Other analogies are obvious. Now, just as the clerk 

 would obtain a very scrappy knowledge of the outside 

 world if he had to trust simply to the messages which 

 stream past him through the exchange, so (it is sug- 

 gested) the picture our mind forms of the external world 

 acting upon us through our sense-impressions may be 

 very wide of the reality. Of course analogies must 

 not be pressed too far. Yet it does seem that this 

 analogy of the telephone exchange could be worked out 

 most consistently by the despised teleologist. To Sir 

 Thomas Gresham's Professor of Geometry, however, a 

 telephone exchange evolving its own clerk is as simple a 

 matter as an uninterrupted stream of sense-impressions 

 creating Spencerianly a consciousness. 



But Prof. Pearson is no mere preacher of familiar 

 doctrines. He is a second Hercules, self-appointed to 

 clear the scientific stables of all materialistic and meta- 

 physical rubbish. He labours at the task of proving how 

 illogical is the mind that passes to "the beyond" of the 

 sense-impressions and the conceptions directly based on 

 these. Thus he argues that, because the Universe is 

 known only as our own mental product, we have no right 

 to infer a mind in or above Nature as an explanation of 

 NO. I 179, VOL. 46] 



the universality of the scientific law. Nevertheless, it 

 behoves him to find a rational substitute for the law of 

 continuity on which the authors of the Unseen Universe 

 build their edifice. Consequently on p. 121 we read : — 



" It is therefore not surprising that normal human 

 beings perceive the same world of phenomena, and reflect 

 upon it in much the same manner." 



Why not surprising ? Because, as we learn from the pre- 

 ceding sentence, human beings " in the normal civilized 

 condition have perceptions and reflective faculties nearly 

 akin." But why nearly akin ? Well, it has to be so because 

 " the world of phenomena must be practically the same for 

 all normal human beings," or the universality of scientific 

 law will fail. Putting in the definitions of the terms in 

 the first quoted sentence we read : — It is therefore not 

 surprising that beings, who have perceptive and reflective 

 faculties capable only of producing practically the same 

 world of phenomena, perceive the same world of pheno- 

 mena and reflect upon it in much the same manner. 

 In this exquisite cycle of reasoning what, we ask, is the 

 logical work done 1 



Our grammarian poses as a logician of the straitest 

 sect. Bad logic he cannot abide ; and since apparently 

 he cannot read a book without seeing the cloven hoof he 

 must have rather a sorry time of it. His own logic must, of 

 course, be flawless. So, when we are told with reiterated 

 emphasis that time and space are but modes of percep- 

 tion, and are then asked to imagine our Universe in time 

 and space without a consciousness to perceive it, we feel 

 a sinking at the heart. Things, we find, can exist under 

 certain modes of a non-existent perception. The laws of 

 Nature are a mental product ; yet a certain evolution 

 theory logically based upon them quite eliminates the 

 mental. We are reminded of the sagacious carpenter 

 who sat high and lifted up on the end of the bracket beam 

 he was sawing through ; or of the small boy who spent 

 his wealth in buying a purse to hold it in. 



A large section of Prof. Pearson's book is destructive 

 criticism. " Cause," " Force," and " Matter " are as red 

 rags to him. Cursed be he who uses these words without 

 clearly defining, in footnote or otherwise, their significance 

 according to the definitions given in the " Grammar of 

 Science." Sir Isaac Newton is severely visited for his sins ; 

 Thomson and Tait get a thorough drubbing ; Maxwell is 

 censured for his bad logic ; and Prof. Tait especially, if we 

 are to judge of him through the medium of this book, 

 must have done more to retard the progress of science 

 than any other single man of the century. Sound criticism 

 is always welcome ; but " smart " controversy of the 

 hustings type is rarely sound in print. As a fair example 

 of our grammarian's method, take his critique of Max- 

 well's descriptions (not definitions be it noted) of the 

 intimate relation between matter and energy. Maxwell 

 says, " We are acquainted with matter only as that which 

 may have energy communicated to it from other matter, 

 &c.," and " Energy, on the other hand, we know only as 

 that which ... is continually passing from one portion of 

 matter to another." These are represented as meaning 

 that " the only way in which we can understand matter is 

 through the energy which it transfers," and " the only 

 way to understand energy is through matter. Matter 

 has been defined in terms of energy, and energy again 



F 



