J. MALCOLM BIRD 289 



the system which was supposed to rule, and for which 

 no alternative could be conceived, these things really 

 could not occur. That was all there was to it. 



Since this pronouncement was good science, how- 

 ever, a lot of things have happened. Most significant 

 of all, science has suffered a pretty fundamental over- 

 turn. Even If I had the space and the familiarity with 

 the details to write In full about this, no convincing 

 account could be given; for science itself does not yet 

 know clearly just what has happened. Science does 

 know that the old viewpoints and the old system are 

 grossly inadequate to give a picture of the universe as 

 it Is now revealed to us, especially at the two ends of 

 the scale. In the macrocosmic and the microcosmic 

 aspects. Science does know approximately In what 

 direction overhaul of the old notions must be sought. 

 But science itself is at a loss for a system of cosmic 

 philosophy which shall neither contradict itself nor fall 

 to find a place for all the things that science now 

 knows as a matter of empirical observation. 



What can be stated with complete certainty Is this: 

 No longer does science maintain that all aspects of the 

 universe must be reducible to the classical categories 

 of matter and energy; no longer does It restrict the 

 concept of objective reality to these categories; no 

 longer does it draw a hard and fast dividing line be- 

 tween different types of reality and Insist that passage 

 from one to another Is not to be contemplated. All 

 departments of science are In accord in these ameliora- 

 tions of the harsh materialistic creed of the nineteenth 

 century. Physics and chemistry find evidence of the 

 non-material and non-energetic categories; mathemat- 

 ical physics and celestial mechanics release the concept 



