SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Theories 

 Theory 



3398. THEORY, ATOMIC, FORE- 

 SHADOWED Surely it cannot be said 

 that Boyle [1626-1692] had not perceived 

 that it was the province of science to con- 

 cern herself not with matter, but with the 

 changes in matter. " I am apt to think," 

 he avers, " that men will never be able to 

 explain the phenomena of Nature while they 

 endeavor to deduce them only from the pres- 

 ence and proportions of such and such ma- 

 terial ingredients, and consider such ingre- 

 dients or elements as bodies in a state of 

 rest; whereas, indeed, the greatest part of 

 the affections of matter, and consequently of 

 the phenomena of Nature, seems to depend 

 upon the motion and contrivance of the 

 small parts of bodies." PARK BENJAMIN 

 Intellectual Rise in Electricity, ch. 13, p. 

 416. (J. W., 1898.) 



3399. THEORY, ATTEMPT TO 

 SHAPE SCIENCE TO FIT A "Convenient 

 Generalisation " in Chemistry. We are 

 afraid it must also be said tho shown only 

 by slight indications in his fundamental 

 work, and coming out in full evidence only 

 in his later writings that M. Comte, at bot- 

 tom, was not so solicitous about complete- 

 ness of proof as becomes a positive philoso- 

 pher, and that the unimpeachable objectiv- 

 ity, as he would have called it, of a con- 

 ception its exact correspondence to the re- 

 alities of outward fact was not, with him, 

 an indispensable condition of adopting it, if 

 it was subjectively useful, by affording fa- 

 cilities to the mind for grouping phenomena. 

 This appears very curiously in his chapters 

 on the philosophy of chemistry. He rec- 

 ommends, as a judicious use of " the degree 

 of liberty left to our intelligence by the end 

 and purpose of positive science," that we 

 should accept as a convenient generalization 

 the doctrine that all chemical composition 

 is between two elements only. MILL Posi- 

 tive Philosophy of Auguste Comte, p. 55. 

 (H. H. & Co./ 1887.) 



3400. THEORY CONFIRMED BY 



FACT Neptune Found Where Gravitation De- 

 manded. By it [the discovery of Neptune] 

 the last lingering doubts as to the absolute 

 exactness of the Newtonian law were dissi- 

 pated. Recondite analytical methods re- 

 ceived a confirmation brilliant and intelli- 

 gible even to the minds of the vulgar, and 

 emerged from the patient solitude of the 

 study to enjoy an hour of clamorous tri- 

 umph. Forever invisible to the unaided 

 eye of man, a sister-globe to our earth was 

 shown to circulate, in perpetual frozen exile, 

 at thirty times its distance from the sun. 

 Nay, the possibility was made apparent that 

 the limits of our system were not even thus 

 reached, but that yet profounder abysses of 

 space might shelter obedient tho little 

 favored members of the solar family, by 

 future astronomers to be recognized through 

 the sympathetic thrillings of Neptune, even 

 as Neptune himself was recognized through 



the telltale deviations of Uranus. CLEBKE 

 History of Astronomy, pt. i, ch. 4, p. 102. 

 (Bl., 1893.) 



340 1 . THEORY, FALSE, MAKES 

 MEN BLIND TO FACTS Sea, Not Land, 

 is Permanent. The interminable controver- 

 sies to which the phenomena of the Bay 

 of Baise [the rise and subsidence of the level 

 of the Temple of Serapis] gave rise have 

 sprung from an extreme reluctance to admit 

 that the land, rather' than the sea, is sub- 

 ject alternately to rise and fall. Had it 

 been assumed that the level of the ocean 

 was invariable, on the ground that no fluc- 

 tuations have as yet been clearly established, 

 and that, on the other hand, the continents 

 are inconstant in their level, as has been 

 demonstrated by the most unequivocal 

 proofs again and again, from the time of 

 Strabo to our own times, the appearances 

 of the temple at Puzzuoli could never have 

 been regarded as enigmatical. Even if con- 

 temporary accounts had not distinctly at- 

 tested the upraising of the coast, this ex- 

 planation should have been proposed in the 

 first instance as the most natural, instead 

 of being now adopted unwillingly when all 

 others have failed. 



To the strong prejudices still existing in 

 regard to the mobility of the land, we may 

 attribute the rarity of such discoveries as 

 have been recently brought to light in the 

 Bay of Baiae. A false theory, it is well 

 known, may render us blind to facts which 

 are opposed . to our prepossessions, or may 

 conceal from us their true import when we 

 behold them. But it is time that the geolo- 

 gist should, in some degree, overcome those 

 first and natural impressions which induced 

 the poets of old to select the rock as the 

 emblem of firmness the sea as the image 

 of inconstancy. Our modern poet, in a more 

 philosophical spirit, saw in the sea "the 

 image of eternity," and has finely contrasted 

 the fleeting existence of the successive em- 

 pires which have flourished and fallen on 

 the borders of the ocean with its own un- 

 changed stability. 



Their decay 



Has dried up realms to deserts : not so thou, 

 Unchangeable save to thy wild wave's play: 



Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow ; 



Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now. 



BYRON Childe Harold, canto iv. 



LYELL Principles of Geology, bk. ii, ch. 29, 



p. 518. (A., 1854.) 



3402. THEORY MUST POINT THE 

 WAY FOR EXPERIMENT Experiment 

 Must Be the Test of Theory. The convic- 

 tion is constantly gaining ground, that in 

 the present more advanced state of science 

 those only can experimentalize profitably 

 who have a clear-sighted knowledge of the- 

 ory, and know how to propound and pur- 

 sue the right questions; and, on the other 

 hand, only those can theorize with advan- 

 tage who have great practise in experiments. 

 The discovery of spectrum analysis is the 

 most brilliant example within our recollec- 



