Maech 6, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



38T 



I have preached it for years, when another 

 tide was running, I am accumulating no fresh 

 sins on my head, now hoary with them! 



Since the days when Lavoisier dethroned 

 phlogiston. Black founded his kitchen-labora- 

 tory, Schleiden and Schwann enunciated the 

 cell-theory, Helmholtz published his epoch- 

 making paper on energy, and Pasteur discov- 

 ered chiralitry, we have been so occupied in 

 the detail of scientific acquisition that little 

 time and, perhaps, less appetite remained for 

 inquiry concerning the fundamental principles 

 in human consciousness whereon all discovery 

 is based ultimately. Doubtless some did phi- 

 losophize, like Lotze and Mill, and even E. du 

 Bois-Eeymond ; but in the rush of new and 

 ever new knowledge, they fell upon neglect, 

 or their speculations consorted, in most 

 minds, with other curious diversions. So, fate 

 working with irony as always, many were con- 

 tent to wallow mid most serbonian bogs, hidden 

 away in the recesses of mental construction 

 and, in the eyes of the too few elect, contrived 

 to cut sad antics. The fine futilities of ag- 

 nosticism, the unashamed, because uncon- 

 scious, contradictions of materialism, and the 

 mystic improprieties of hylozoism thus came 

 to di duty as presentable accounts of first 

 principles. Anything " went." Every stu- 

 dent of the history of culture knows perfectly 

 well that this sort of thing can not go on in- 

 definitely. A day of reckoning has arrived 

 invariably, later if not sooner; and there is 

 no reason to surmise that our own ease will 

 furnish any exception to a constant rule. If 

 we would tarry only long enough to ask, for 

 example, the simple question. To what does 

 hypothesis amount? we would, beyond perad- 

 venture, rub our eyes when confronted with the 

 unexpected result. It is well, therefore, that 

 a past master in one realm of science should 

 have taken heart of grace to call a halt for 

 the purpose of reviewing some of the funda- 

 mental presuppositions incident to all phe- 

 nomenal research. M. Poincare's troubles 

 may, indeed, seem far removed from the daily 

 storm and stress of our laboratories. Never- 

 theless, they can not be dodged if one would 

 know what reliance can be placed upon that 



elusive thing we label confidently " scientific 

 certainty." 



Now, obviously, when normative, and there- 

 fore very general, problems come in question, 

 the thinkers who attack them will be influ- 

 enced, severally, by previous interest, famil- 

 iarities, and consequent constructive inten- 

 tion. They are helpless to rid themselves of 

 distinctive standpoint. Here, if anywhere, 

 we perceive that the " human " is himself the 

 most important piece of apparatus in the labo- 

 ratory. We must not expect Poincare and 

 Ostwald, for instance, to stress identical dif- 

 ferences, or even to approach the same issues 

 with similar intent. Nay, even naturalists, 

 like Brooks and Arthur Thomson, diverge 

 widely both in method and outlook, when they 

 record their conclusions on first principles. 

 Naturally, then, M. Poincare proves this rule 

 — he is always the mathematician, and the 

 mathematician of most "modern port." For 

 this very reason his work proves enthralling, 

 even if some young lions of philosophy could 

 pierce his speculative guard here and there. 



Nor is this all. The mathematical spirit 

 comes permeated by gallic genius. Where we, 

 and our kith in the British isles, achieve re- 

 sults by vast compilation of examples, where 

 we are valiantly empirical, the French proceed 

 by way of abstraction and quick appeal ta 

 rational principles. Knowledge must fetch 

 and carry for us; for them she is a mistress 

 to be worshipped with a kind of holy joy. 

 Ideas render us restive or impatient, the 

 French would die for a "cause." Hence, as 

 Glazebrook records, in his monograph on 

 Maxwell (pp. 216 f.), Poincare experiences 

 " a feeling of uneasiness, often even of dis- 

 trust," in approaching Maxwell's investiga- 

 tions, because "Maxwell does not give a me- 

 chanical explanation of electricity and mag- 

 netism, he is only concerned to show that such 

 an explanation is possible." The canny Scot 

 was not there to buy out the entire store; he 

 would go in and ask change for sixpence.' 

 And he would get it, moreover. But, what is 

 the basis for his procedure ? Ignorant of this, 

 his action can not be grasped. The philosoph- 

 ical instinct, with its ineradicable suspicion 

 so intolerable to the eager researcher, speaks 



