CHAELES B. WARRING, PH.D. 223 



in every department; should demonstrate to them the 

 errors in present theories, they would be dazed by the 

 greatness of the catastrophe. Few, indeed, would be 

 the theories that would survive. Probably not one 

 would escape serious damage, except that which per- 

 tains to the mechanism of the heavens, explaining all 

 astronomical movements by an original impulse affected 

 by a centreward stress varying inversely as the square 

 of the distance, and directly as the masses. And yet, 

 by the irony of fate, this theory, so perfect that it is the 

 pride and boast of the human intellect, rests upon the 

 existence of an attraction, an impulse, a stress or what- 

 ever it is — we call it gravitation — which in defiance of 

 every effort, refuses to be brought into any theory. 



The layman in science, the man who would have 

 general conclusions and short explanations, and who 

 dotes on theories, would stand aghast at such wholesale 

 destruction, and imagine the dark ages were about to 

 return, yet not one fact would be lost, and only an im- 

 mense amount of rubbish would be cleared away. After 

 such a puritiying, science would bound forward with 

 an energy and success, far surpassing all that it had 

 done before. 



I trust I have made clear the enormous difference in 

 vitality and importance between facts and theories. But 

 do not underrate the latter. Only He who knows all 

 things has no need of their assistance. We mortals re- 

 main forever learners. We need them as aids to 

 memory. In every department of knowledge, the num- 

 ber of facts is so large that to hold them in mind with- 

 out the mnemotechny of a theory, which fits places for 

 them, and puts them there, would be impossible. The 

 atomic theory is indispensable to the chemist, although 

 his atoms differ from those of all other physicians in 

 that they are of various weights, and have various quali- 

 ties. He finds it, too, an exceedingly useful thing to 



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