422 



NATURE 



[January 30, 1919 



In a previous article on this subject (Nature^ 

 October 24, 1918) the issue is clearly raised as 

 ■ 111 the narrow class representation ol science 

 in its own interests in Parliament, and the need 

 of having qualified men of science there as citi- 

 zens, tree to use their special knowledge and 

 qualifications in the national interest as a whole; 

 and the latter ideal is frankly and powerfully 

 upheld. Expert witnesses of a party, or impartial 

 social servants of the community, under which 

 banner are the scientific investigators who are 

 to be asked to sacrifice their life-work to be called 



Upon to serve:' II the fust, then no one but the 



type of prospective candidates ti> whom such work 

 would be congenial, and the scientific organisa- 

 tions likely to benefit materially and directly by 

 their advocacy, will consider the matter worthy 

 of a second thought. Science is, not vet at 

 least, an interest, an organisation, or a profes- 

 sion, but transcends these aspects no less than 

 the welfare of the nation transcends that of the 

 coteries that represent it in Parliament. 



There remains the second ideal that men of 

 science should claim their place on the broad and 

 old-fashioned base of impartial and disinterested 

 social service to the nation. If it had not been for 

 the war, to find constituencies for such candidates 

 would doubtless have appeared verv Utopian and 

 impracticable. The nation has, however, been 

 brought violently back to its ideals, and that of 

 disinterested social service for the general weal, 

 which the Government demanded of its citizens in 

 war, will in turn be demanded by the nation of its 

 politicians in peace. In a political contest between 

 idealism and materialism almost any sort of 

 idealism is likely to prevail. The wide idealism 

 of the Labour Party has probably gained for it 

 far more adherents than its extreme views and 

 divided war counsels have repelled. Conditions 

 are now fluid, as they never were before, and, 

 when they set, as soon they must, any scheme 

 founded merely on the peculiar standards of to- 

 day's political expediency may find itself nipped 

 he root. A scheme to send men of science 

 ml Parliament to represent in the general scrim- 

 of interests their own special wants, in 

 return for due allegiance to the party that arranges 

 their eld tion, must reckon with the fervent inten- 

 tion of thi verwhelming majority of disinterested 

 electors in this country to prevent in future the 

 rigging of eli nid with the power that pro- 



portional represi ition, already in operation in 

 the university co es, gives them to stop 



it absolutely. 



But it is idle to wait until another election is 

 on the country. To hav< the slightest chance of 

 success, the work should I i iu,w, an election 



sro. 2570, vol. 102] 



fund should be raised, and a group <>l prospective 

 scientific candidates got together under a leader 

 of enthusiasm familiar with the inner labyrinth 

 of the political world. With the help of men of 



goodwill among their own colleagues, the temper 

 nl the electorate being what it is and nearly all 

 men ol goodwill in the nation awaiting a lead, 

 Such a group might find itself in Parliament as 

 soon as, or even before, it was ready to pcrlorm 

 its salutar\ and necessatw task in the grave work 

 that lies ahead. Hut the claim of these candi- 

 dates in election must rest mi the broad and 



elemental y ground that their life-work has given 

 them special knowledge and insight into the scien- 

 tific discoveries which in the short space of a few 

 generations have revolutionised the whole world, 

 and which the Mother of Parliaments will ignore 

 and continue to run counter to only at the nation's 

 peril. 



PHYSICS: ANCIENT AND MODERN. 

 On the Nature of Things. By Dr. Hugh Woods. 



Pp. v + 248. (Bristol: John Wright and Sons, 



Ltd., 1918.) Price 10s. 6d. net. 

 The New Science of the Fundamental Physics. 



By Dr. W. W. Strong. Pp. xi+107. (Me- 



chanicsburg, Pa. : S.I.E.M. Co., 1918.) Price 



1.25 dollars. 

 (1) T^L WOODS puts forward "a new scien- 

 -*--' tific theory," and asks that his views 

 "shall be carefully considered and supported if 

 tin \ appear true, or attacked if they seem false." 

 He could ask nothing more difficult to grant. 

 Judged by the canons of men of science, his views 

 are certainly incorrect, always when they are new, 

 and sometimes when they are not ; his book sug- 

 gests an essay written by somebody who attended 

 a course of popular lectures at the Royal Institu- 

 tion twenty-five years ago, and afterwards lost 

 his notes. 



But, of course, Dr. Woods, though he may not 

 know it, does not accept those canons. He be- 

 lieves, as his title suggests, that truth is to be 

 found in a return to Lucretius. Now the differ- 

 ence between Lucretius and a modern student of 

 science is not so much in what they believe to 

 be true as in what they believe to be truth. 

 Both are concerned to "explain phenomena," and 

 to both explanation consists formally in showing 

 that the observed facts can be deduced from some 

 set of general principles. But if any principles 

 were permissible, anything could be explained 

 without the smallest trouble, for it is very easy to 

 find a set of propositions from which any other 

 set may be deduced. The principles must fulfil 

 some other condition. This condition is that the 

 prim iples give a certain form of intellectual satis- 

 faction. It is here that we differ from Lucretius 

 and Dr. Woods ; the kind of explanation that 

 appeals to us does not appeal to them. De gusti- 

 bus nmi est disputandum. Of course, we sav that 

 the principles which give its the intellectual satis- 



