THE FAILURE OF SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM. 593 



as soon as it was perceived that the same laws which prevailed 

 there could also claim their inviolable right here. This view of 

 the world found its classical expression in Laplace's idea of a 

 " world formula," by means of which every past and future event 

 could be brought about in a strictly analytical way according to 

 mechanical laws. For such a work, a mind was required which 

 was far superior to the human mind, but was still essentially like 

 it and not fundamentally different from it. 



We do not ordinarily remark in how extremely high a measure 

 this generally current view is hypothetical, even metaphysical > 

 but are accustomed, on the other hand, to regard it as the maxi- 

 mum of exact formulation of actual facts. In contradiction to 

 this it should be declared that a confirmation of the consequence 

 that should flow out of this theory that all the non-mechanical 

 processes, like heat, light, electricity, magnetism, and chemism, 

 are really mechanical can not be reached in any single case. It 

 has never been possible in any one of these instances so to account 

 for the actual conditions by a corresponding mechanical system 

 that there should be no remainder. 



Mechanical interpretations, it is true, have been given with 

 more or less considerable success to individual phenomena ; but 

 when the attempt has been made to account for all the facts in 

 any given field by means of a mechanical conception, it has 

 always and without exception come to pass that an irreconcilable 

 contradiction appeared at some point, between the actual state of 

 the phenomena and that which the mechanical conception would 

 lead us to expect. Such contradictions might remain hidden for a 

 long time ; but the history of science teaches us that they will 

 inevitably sooner or later come to light ; and that all that we 

 can say with full certainty of such mechanical conceptions or 

 analogies as are usually called mechanical theories of the phe- 

 nomena in question is that they will at any rate fill the gap for 

 the present. 



The history of optical theories affords a conspicuous example 

 of these conditions. So long as all optics included nothing more 

 than the phenomena of reflection and refraction, an interpretation 

 was possible under the mechanical scheme proposed by Newton, 

 according to which light consists of small particles which, thrown 

 oat straightwise by shining bodies, behaved according to the laws 

 of moving and perfectly elastic masses. That another mechan- 

 ical view, the undulatory theory proposed by Huygens and Euler, 

 accomplished quite as much, might make the exclusive validity 

 of the former theory doubtful, but could not deprive it of its pre- 

 dominance. But when the phenomena of polarization and inter- 

 ference were discovered, Newton's mechanical conception was 

 found wholly inadequate, and the other, the undulatory theory, 



VOL. XLTIII. 42 



