102 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LI. No. 1309 



which trinket he will select for his mental 

 adornment. 



Perhaps all of us can get together again on 

 conunon ground by putting our concepts of 

 nature-action into simpler, more comprehen- 

 sive formulas, universal in application, and 

 somewhat as follows. In so far as we have a 

 right to assiune that purposeful action is in- 

 volved in any constructive functioning what- 

 ever, or in anything that has been accom- 

 plished, we may assiune that the purpose, or 

 grand strategy in nature-action, is evolution, 

 or self-construction, or growth. To that end, 

 serviceable agents must first exist, or be con- 

 structed, in which is resident a basic right to 

 receive service, and a basic obligation to give 

 service. As all constructive action is con- 

 tingent on the fulfilment of these mutual 

 rights and obligations, the categorical im- 

 perative to existence is mutual service. 



As corollaries to this categorical imperative, 

 the following compulsions are laid upon these 

 constructive agents. In all sustained construc- 

 tive action there must be: (1) A mutual di- 

 rective discipline, or mutual adaptation; that 

 is, a mutual subjection, and yielding to one 

 another's influence. (2) An individual free- 

 dom of opportunity for self-constructive, or 

 egoistic action, within rigidly circmnscribed 

 limitations. (3) Mutual service or cooperative 

 action, in which, soner or later, the profits of 

 egoism must be surrendered, through altruism, 

 to some ulterior creative act. (4) Conserva- 

 tion of these profits as an accumulating capital 

 in constructive rightness, and its endowment 

 to O'ther individualities for usage in further 

 constructive action. 



In that phase of cosmic evolution which we 

 call social growth, science and religion are the 

 outstanding cooperative agents. They better 

 serve their ulterior purposes the better their 

 mutual services, and the better their mutual 

 adaptation of thought and act to creative 

 ends. 



Science and religion always have asked, and 

 doubtless always will ask, the same funda- 

 mental questions. What creates, what pre- 

 serves, and what destroys the products of na- 

 ture, and how may man profit thereby? The 



answers, whatever they may be, must ulti- 

 mately be expressed by them in essentially 

 equivalent terms, their verification sought in 

 constructive action. 



The large element of unpredictable returns 

 resident in all phases of nature-action de- 

 mands trial; creative turns justify the experi- 

 ment. 



These unsuspected potentialities are revealed 

 in the trimnphs of nature's creative art and 

 thus confirm her independence of established 

 laws and precedents. Therein is the source of 

 man's undying hope and faith, his abiding im- 

 pulse to endeavor. 



William Patten 



Dartmouth College 



ON NIPHER'S "GRAVITATIONAL" EX- 

 PERIMENT AND THE ANOMALIES 

 OF THE MOON'S MOTION^ 



From his assumption that matter is en- 

 tirely electrical, Fessenden concluded^ that 

 the atoms in the interior of solid bodies are 

 charged electrically, contrary to a common 

 conception that a static charge resides wholly 

 on the surface. Fessenden's assumption has 

 now been completely confirmed by Professor 

 Francis E. Nipher's experiment with an elec- 

 trified Cavendish apparatus,^ which shows 

 that when thin electrified shells of metal are 

 substituted for the large leaden spheres, no 

 effect is produced on the inner small sus- 

 pended spheres, protected by a metal case, 

 when the electricity is applied. This, of 

 course, simply corroborates Faraday's " ice- 

 pail " experiment. But when the large leaden 

 spheres are restored to place and electrified, 

 the electricity gradually soaks in, and after 

 about half an hour this interior charge of the 

 atoms has accumulated sufficiently to produce 

 an electrical repulsion of the small spheres, 

 greater than their original gravitational at- 



1 This paper was read at the twenty-second meet- 

 ing of the American Astronomical Society at Har- 

 vard College Observatory, August, 1918. 



2Electr. Soc, Newark, 1890; Electr. World, 

 August 8-22, 1891. 



3 ' ' Gravitational Repulsion, ' ' Transactions of the 

 Academy of Science of St. Louis, Vol. XXIII., p. 

 177, 1917. 



