THE DISCOVERY OF LAWS 75 



the next chapter) that they were the first to establish a 

 law of the form that is specially characteristic of that 

 science. Thus of physics, numerical laws (which we shall 

 discuss later) are especially characteristic ; Galileo was 

 the first to establish a numerical law of the type of which 

 almost all modern physics consists ; nine-tenths of the 

 work of later physicists in the discovery of laws has been 

 simply the extension of laws of Galileo's form to other 

 fields of experience. Galileo may fairly be hailed as the 

 founder of experimental physics. Other great men have 

 so changed or amplified the form, that their work ranks 

 as independent Boyle, and Ampere may claim place in 

 this class ; but again their fame rests largely on the dis- 

 covery of a new type of law which has been simply 

 applied elsewhere by lesser men. Of other sciences I am 

 not competent to speak, but if Lavoisier is the founder 

 of modern chemistry it is because he first established a 

 law of the form that asserts chemical combination ; and 

 if Linnaeus is the founder of systematic botany, it is 

 because he first established a law of the form that asserts 

 the existence of a particular species of plant. 



This then is really the solution of the main question 

 of this chapter, as it faces the practising student of science. 

 He believes that if he ca v a w of acertain 



_ 



form'jnd order h^^ enc ^~ wa Y then that 

 law will predict and nature will conform to that order. 

 And so far, at least since the seventeenth century, Iris 

 expectation has never been falsified ; I believe that in 

 the history of modern science there is no instance of the 

 abandonment of a type of law which has once been firmly 

 established. Progress has been continuous ; it has con- 

 sisted in the establishment of many laws of old types, and 

 very occasionally, in the introduction of new types. 

 Even when at first sight experience has contradicted ex- 

 pectation, it has always been possible (as in the example of 

 the black swan) to remove the contradiction by resolving 



