INTRODUCTION 23 



vicious and altogether erroneous doctrine have doubtless 

 become hardened to its monstrosity, for they seem to pro- 

 claim it in and out of season with every mark of proud 

 paternity ! For my part, I regard such a conclusion as, on 

 the face of it, so gross a reductio ad absurdum as by itself 

 to refute the entire process of ratiocination by which it 

 has been reached, even if in its wake lay, one after 

 another, complete solutions of all the paramount prob- 

 lems above considered, instead of the lengthening trail of 

 incompetence and failure that really does mark it. 



In the words of Balf our Stewart : 



We are led to look to a beginning in which the particles 

 of matter were in a diffuse chaotic state, but endowed with the 

 power of gravitation, and we are led to look to an end in which 

 the whole universe will be one equally heated inert mass, and 

 from which everything like life or motion or beauty will have 

 utterly gone away. 



Recapitulating, then, we find our modern Argonauts 

 of science starting out to explore and interpret the uni- 

 verse by, first of all, methodically casting overboard that 

 heretofore faithful compass of mankind, the natural law 

 of cause and effect ; stigmatizing, as behind the times, 

 those of us who continue to cling to the belief that 

 mechanical effects, whether in the skies or in the labora- 

 tory, can derive existence only from preexisting causes ; 

 decrying the notion that gravitation is an objective 

 reality, and in its stead substituting the metaphysical ab- 

 straction of "position" ; proclaiming by precept the law 

 of the inverse square, and inconsistently employing an 

 admittedly empirical formula in practice ; setting up, one 

 after another, and again and again, spurious hypotheses 

 as to the origin of cosmic heat, seemingly for the mere 

 sport of knocking them down ; tendering us a job lot of 

 cosmogonies from which to make choice, not one of which 

 but flouts Nature and her laws ; promulgating a theory of 

 tides, then conclusively disproving it, and afterward, 

 knowing its falsity, continuing nevertheless to teach it as 

 true and as a "guide" to the observations; depending 

 helplessly upon mechanical implements rather than upon 



