COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



it is impossible to frame, — and Newton knew 

 it, or felt it to be so. But nowhere did his un- 

 rivalled wisdom show itself more impressively 

 than in this, — that he accurately discriminated 

 between the requirements of science and the re- 

 quirements of metaphysics, and clearly saw that, 

 while metaphysics is satisfied with nothing short 

 of absolute subjective congruity, it is quite 

 enough for a scientific hypothesis that it gives 

 a correct description of the observed coexist- 

 ences and sequences among phenomena. 1 In 

 truth, for scientific purposes, we are no more 

 required to conceive the action of matter upon 

 matter in the case of gravitation than in any 

 other case of physical causation. All that the 

 hypothesis really asserts is that matter, in the 

 presence of other matter, will alter its space 

 relations in a specified way ; and there is no re- 

 ference whatever to any metaphysical occulta vis 

 which passes from matter in one place to matter 

 in another place. 



There is, however, no good ground for ob- 

 jecting to the use of the phrase " attraction," 

 provided it be employed only as a scientific 

 artifice. There is a certain sense in which sci- 



1 This is distinctly stated by Copernicus : " Neque enim 

 necesse est eas hypotheses esse veras, imo ne verisimile quidem, 

 sed sufficit hoc unum, si calculum observationibus congruentem 

 exhibeant." See Lewies, Aristotle, p. 92 ; Problems of* Life 

 and Mind, vol. i. p. 317. 



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