Popular scientific lectures

Chapter 8

Prev List Next

When we Germans say of a man that he was not the inventor of gunpowder,[82] we impliedly cast a grave suspicion on his abilities. But the expression is not a felicitous one, as there is probably no invention in which deliberate thought had a smaller, and pure luck a larger, share than in this. It is well to ask, Are we justified in placing a low estimate on the achievement of an inventor because accident has a.s.sisted him in his work? Huygens, whose discoveries and inventions are justly sufficient to ent.i.tle him to an opinion in such matters, lays great emphasis on this factor. He a.s.serts that a man capable of inventing the telescope without the concurrence of accident must have been gifted with superhuman genius.[83]

A man living in the midst of civilisation finds himself surrounded by a host of marvellous inventions, considering none other than the means of satisfying the needs of daily life. Picture such a man transported to the epoch preceding the invention of these ingenious appliances, and imagine him undertaking in a serious manner to comprehend their origin. At first the intellectual power of the men capable of producing such marvels will strike him as incredible, or, if we adopt the ancient view, as divine. But his astonishment is considerably allayed by the disenchanting yet elucidative revelations of the history of primitive culture, which to a large extent prove that these inventions took their rise very slowly and by imperceptible degrees.

A small hole in the ground with fire kindled in it const.i.tuted the primitive stove. The flesh of the quarry, wrapped with water in its skin, was boiled by contact with heated stones. Cooking by stones was also done in wooden vessels. Hollow gourds were protected from the fire by coats of clay. Thus, from the burned clay accidentally originated the enveloping pot, which rendered the gourd superfluous, although for a long time thereafter the clay was still spread over the gourd, or pressed into woven wicker-work before the potter"s art a.s.sumed its final independence. Even then the wicker-work ornament was retained, as a sort of attest of its origin.

We see, thus, it is by accidental circ.u.mstances, or by such as lie without our purpose, foresight, and power, that man is gradually led to the acquaintance of improved means of satisfying his wants. Let the reader picture to himself the genius of a man who could have foreseen without the help of accident that clay handled in the ordinary manner would produce a useful cooking utensil! The majority of the inventions made in the early stages of civilisation, including language, writing, money, and the rest, could not have been the product of deliberate methodical reflexion for the simple reason that no idea of their value and significance could have been had except from practical use. The invention of the bridge may have been suggested by the trunk of a tree which had fallen athwart a mountain-torrent; that of the tool by the use of a stone accidentally taken into the hand to crack nuts. The use of fire probably started in and was disseminated from regions where volcanic eruptions, hot springs, and burning jets of natural gas afforded opportunity for quietly observing and turning to practical account the properties of fire. Only after that had been done could the significance of the fire-drill be appreciated, an instrument which was probably discovered from boring a hole through a piece of wood. The suggestion of a distinguished inquirer that the invention of the fire-drill originated on the occasion of a religious ceremony is both fantastic and incredible. And as to the use of fire, we should no more attempt to derive that from the invention of the fire-drill than we should from the invention of sulphur matches. Unquestionably the opposite course was the real one.[84]

Similar phenomena, though still largely veiled in obscurity, mark the initial transition of nations from a hunting to a nomadic life and to agriculture.[85] We shall not multiply examples, but content ourselves with the remark that the same phenomena recur in historical times, in the ages of great technical inventions, and, further, that regarding them the most whimsical notions have been circulated--notions which ascribe to accident an unduly exaggerated part, and one which in a psychological respect is absolutely impossible. The observation of steam escaping from a tea-kettle and of the clattering of the lid is supposed to have led to the invention of the steam-engine. Just think of the gap between this spectacle and the conception of the performance of great mechanical work by steam, for a man totally ignorant of the steam-engine! Let us suppose, however, that an engineer, versed in the practical construction of pumps, should accidentally dip into water an inverted bottle that had been filled with steam for drying and still retained its steam. He would see the water rush violently into the bottle, and the idea would very naturally suggest itself of founding on this experience a convenient and useful atmospheric steam-pump, which by imperceptible degrees, both psychologically possible and immediate, would then undergo a natural and gradual transformation into Watt"s steam-engine.

But granting that the most important inventions are brought to man"s notice accidentally and in ways that are beyond his foresight, yet it does not follow that accident alone is sufficient to produce an invention. The part which man plays is by no means a pa.s.sive one. Even the first potter in the primeval forest must have felt some stirrings of genius within him. In all such cases, the inventor is obliged to take note of the new fact, he must discover and grasp its advantageous feature, and must have the power to turn that feature to account in the realisation of his purpose. He must isolate the new feature, impress it upon his memory, unite and interweave it with the rest of his thought; in short, he must possess the capacity to profit by experience.

The capacity to profit by experience might well be set up as a test of intelligence. This power varies considerably in men of the same race, and increases enormously as we advance from the lower animals to man. The former are limited in this regard almost entirely to the reflex actions which they have inherited with their organism, they are almost totally incapable of individual experience, and considering their simple wants are scarcely in need of it. The ivory-snail (Eburna spirata) never learns to avoid the carnivorous Actinia, no matter how often it may wince under the latter"s shower of needles, apparently having no memory for pain whatever.[86] A spider can be lured forth repeatedly from its hole by touching its web with a tuning-fork. The moth plunges again and again into the flame which has burnt it. The humming-bird hawk-moth[87] dashes repeatedly against the painted roses of the wall-paper, like the unhappy and desperate thinker who never wearies of attacking the same insoluble chimerical problem. As aimlessly almost as Maxwell"s gaseous molecules and in the same unreasoning manner common flies in their search for light and air stream against the gla.s.s pane of a half-opened window and remain there from sheer inability to find their way around the narrow frame. But a pike separated from the minnows of his aquarium by a gla.s.s part.i.tion, learns after the lapse of a few months, though only after having b.u.t.ted himself half to death, that he cannot attack these fishes with impunity. What is more, he leaves them in peace even after the removal of the part.i.tion, though he will bolt a strange fish at once. Considerable memory must be attributed to birds of pa.s.sage, a memory which, probably owing to the absence of disturbing thoughts, acts with the precision of that of some idiots. Finally, the susceptibility to training evinced by the higher vertebrates is indisputable proof of the ability of these animals to profit by experience.

A powerfully developed mechanical memory, which recalls vividly and faithfully old situations, is sufficient for avoiding definite particular dangers, or for taking advantage of definite particular opportunities. But more is required for the development of inventions. More extensive chains of images are necessary here, the excitation by mutual contact of widely different trains of ideas, a more powerful, more manifold, and richer connexion of the contents of memory, a more powerful and impressionable psychical life, heightened by use. A man stands on the bank of a mountain-torrent, which is a serious obstacle to him. He remembers that he has crossed just such a torrent before on the trunk of a fallen tree. Hard by trees are growing. He has often moved the trunks of fallen trees. He has also felled trees before, and then moved them. To fell trees he has used sharp stones. He goes in search of such a stone, and as the old situations that crowd into his memory and are held there in living reality by the definite powerful interest which he has in crossing just this torrent,--as these impressions are made to pa.s.s before his mind in the inverse order in which they were here evoked, he invents the bridge.

There can be no doubt but the higher vertebrates adapt their actions in some moderate degree to circ.u.mstances. The fact that they give no appreciable evidence of advance by the acc.u.mulation of inventions, is satisfactorily explained by a difference of degree or intensity of intelligence as compared with man; the a.s.sumption of a difference of kind is not necessary. A person who saves a little every day, be it ever so little, has an incalculable advantage over him who daily squanders that amount, or is unable to keep what he has acc.u.mulated. A slight quant.i.tative difference in such things explains enormous differences of advancement.

The rules which hold good in prehistoric times also hold good in historical times, and the remarks made on invention may be applied almost without modification to discovery; for the two are distinguished solely by the use to which the new knowledge is put. In both cases the investigator is concerned with some newly observed relation of new or old properties, abstract or concrete. It is observed, for example, that a substance which gives a chemical reaction A is also the cause of a chemical reaction B. If this observation fulfils no purpose but that of furthering the scientist"s insight, or of removing a source of intellectual discomfort, we have a discovery; but an invention, if in using the substance giving the reaction A to produce the desired reaction B, we have a practical end in view, and seek to remove a source of material discomfort. The phrase, disclosure of the connexion of reactions, is broad enough to cover discoveries and inventions in all departments. It embraces the Pythagorean proposition, which is a combination of a geometrical and an arithmetical reaction, Newton"s discovery of the connexion of Kepler"s motions with the law of the inverse squares, as perfectly as it does the detection of some minute but appropriate alteration in the construction of a tool, or of some appropriate change in the methods of a dyeing establishment.

The disclosure of new provinces of facts before unknown can only be brought about by accidental circ.u.mstances, under which are remarked facts that commonly go unnoticed. The achievement of the discoverer here consists in his sharpened attention, which detects the uncommon features of an occurrence and their determining conditions from their most evanescent marks,[88] and discovers means of submitting them to exact and full observation. Under this head belong the first disclosures of electrical and magnetic phenomena, Grimaldi"s observation of interference, Arago"s discovery of the increased check suffered by a magnetic needle vibrating in a copper envelope as compared with that observed in a bandbox, Foucault"s observation of the stability of the plane of vibration of a rod accidentally struck while rotating in a turning-lathe, Mayer"s observation of the increased redness of venous blood in the tropics, Kirchhoff"s observation of the augmentation of the D-line in the solar spectrum by the interposition of a sodium lamp, SchAnbein"s discovery of ozone from the phosphoric smell emitted on the disruption of air by electric sparks, and a host of others. All these facts, of which unquestionably many were seen numbers of times before they were noticed, are examples of the inauguration of momentous discoveries by accidental circ.u.mstances, and place the importance of strained attention in a brilliant light.

But not only is a significant part played in the beginning of an inquiry by co-operative circ.u.mstances beyond the foresight of the investigator; their influence is also active in its prosecution. Dufay, thus, whilst following up the behavior of one electrical state which he had a.s.sumed, discovers the existence of two. Fresnel learns by accident that the interference-bands received on ground gla.s.s are seen to better advantage in the open air. The diffraction-phenomenon of two slits proved to be considerably different from what Fraunhofer had antic.i.p.ated, and in following up this circ.u.mstance he was led to the important discovery of grating-spectra. Faraday"s induction-phenomenon departed widely from the initial conception which occasioned his experiments, and it is precisely this deviation that const.i.tutes his real discovery.

Every man has pondered on some subject. Every one of us can multiply the examples cited, by less ill.u.s.trious ones from his own experience. I shall cite but one. On rounding a railway curve once, I accidentally remarked a striking apparent inclination of the houses and trees. I inferred that the direction of the total resultant physical acceleration of the body reacts physiologically as the vertical. Afterwards, in attempting to inquire more carefully into this phenomenon, and this only, in a large whirling machine, the collateral phenomena conducted me to the sensation of angular acceleration, vertigo, Flouren"s experiments on the section of the semi-circular ca.n.a.ls etc., from which gradually resulted views relating to sensations of direction which are also held by Breuer and Brown, which were at first contested on all hands, but are now regarded on many sides as correct, and which have been recently enriched by the interesting inquiries of Breuer concerning the macula acustica, and Kreidel"s experiments with magnetically orientable crustacea.[89] Not disregard of accident but a direct and purposeful employment of it advances research.

The more powerful the psychical connexion of the memory pictures is,--and it varies with the individual and the mood,--the more apt is the same accidental observation to be productive of results. Galileo knows that the air has weight; he also knows of the "resistance to a vacuum," expressed both in weight and in the height of a column of water. But the two ideas dwelt asunder in his mind. It remained for Torricelli to vary the specific gravity of the liquid measuring the pressure, and not till then was the air included in the list of pressure-exerting fluids. The reversal of the lines of the spectrum was seen repeatedly before Kirchhoff, and had been mechanically explained. But it was left for his penetrating vision to discern the evidence of the connexion of this phenomenon with questions of heat, and to him alone through persistent labor was revealed the sweeping significance of the fact for the mobile equilibrium of heat. Supposing, then, that such a rich organic connexion of the elements of memory exists, and is the prime distinguishing mark of the inquirer, next in importance certainly is that intense interest in a definite object, in a definite idea, which fashions advantageous combinations of thought from elements before disconnected, and obtrudes that idea into every observation made, and into every thought formed, making it enter into relationship with all things. Thus Bradley, deeply engrossed with the subject of aberration, is led to its solution by an exceedingly un.o.btrusive experience in crossing the Thames. It is permissible, therefore, to ask whether accident leads the discoverer, or the discoverer accident, to a successful outcome in scientific quests.

No man should dream of solving a great problem unless he is so thoroughly saturated with his subject that everything else sinks into comparative insignificance. During a hurried meeting with Mayer in Heidelberg once, Jolly remarked, with a rather dubious implication, that if Mayer"s theory were correct water could be warmed by shaking. Mayer went away without a word of reply. Several weeks later, and now unrecognised by Jolly, he rushed into the latter"s presence exclaiming: "Es ischt aso!" (It is so, it is so!) It was only after considerable explanation that Jolly found out what Mayer wanted to say. The incident needs no comment.[90]

A person deadened to sensory impressions and given up solely to the pursuit of his own thoughts, may also light on an idea that will divert his mental activity into totally new channels. In such cases it is a psychical accident, an intellectual experience, as distinguished from a physical accident, to which the person owes his discovery--a discovery which is here made "deductively" by means of mental copies of the world, instead of experimentally. Purely experimental inquiry, moreover, does not exist, for, as Gauss says, virtually we always experiment with our thoughts. And it is precisely that constant, corrective interchange or intimate union of experiment and deduction, as it was cultivated by Galileo in his Dialogues and by Newton in his Optics, that is the foundation of the benign fruitfulness of modern scientific inquiry as contrasted with that of antiquity, where observation and reflexion ofttimes pursued their respective courses like two strangers.

We have to wait for the appearance of a favorable physical accident. The movement of our thoughts obeys the law of a.s.sociation. In the case of meagre experience the result of this law is simply the mechanical reproduction of definite sensory experiences. On the other hand, if the psychical life is subjected to the incessant influences of a powerful and rich experience, then every representative element in the mind is connected with so many others that the actual and natural course of the thoughts is easily influenced and determined by insignificant circ.u.mstances, which accidentally are decisive. Hereupon, the process termed imagination produces its protean and infinitely diversified forms. Now what can we do to guide this process, seeing that the combinatory law of the images is without our reach? Rather let us ask, what influence can a powerful and constantly recurring idea exert on the movement of our thoughts? According to what has preceded, the answer is involved in the question itself. The idea dominates the thought of the inquirer, not the latter the former.

Let us see, now, if we can acquire a profounder insight into the process of discovery. The condition of the discoverer is, as James has aptly remarked, not unlike the situation of a person who is trying to remember something that he has forgotten. Both are sensible of a gap, and have only a remote presentiment of what is missing. Suppose I meet in a company a well-known and affable gentleman whose name I have forgotten, and who to my horror asks to be introduced to some one. I set to work according to Lichtenberg"s rule, and run down the alphabet in search of the initial letter of his name. A vague sympathy holds me at the letter G. Tentatively I add the second letter and am arrested at e, and long before I have tried the third letter r, the name "Gerson" sounds sonorously upon my ear, and my anguish is gone. While taking a walk I meet a gentleman from whom I receive a communication. On returning home, and in attending to weightier affairs, the matter slips my mind. Moodily, but in vain, I ransack my memory. Finally I observe that I am going over my walk again in thought. On the street corner in question the self-same gentleman stands before me and repeats his communication. In this process are successively recalled to consciousness all the percepts which were connected with the percept that was lost, and with them, finally, that, too, is brought to light. In the first case--where the experience had already been made and is permanently impressed on our thought--a systematic procedure is both possible and easy, for we know that a name must be composed of a limited number of sounds. But at the same time it should be observed that the labor involved in such a combinatorial task would be enormous if the name were long and the responsiveness of the mind weaker.

It is often said, and not wholly without justification, that the scientist has solved a riddle. Every problem in geometry may be clothed in the garb of a riddle. Thus: "What thing is that M which has the properties A, B, C?" "What circle is that which touches the straight lines A, B, but touches B in the point C?" The first two conditions marshal before the imagination the group of circles whose centres lie in the line of symmetry of A, B. The third condition reminds us of all the circles having centres in the straight line that stands at right angles to B in C. The common term, or common terms, of the two groups of images solves the riddle--satisfies the problem. Puzzles dealing with things or words induce similar processes, but the memory in such cases is exerted in many directions and more varied and less clearly ordered provinces of ideas are surveyed. The difference between the situation of a geometer who has a construction to make, and that of an engineer, or a scientist, confronted with a problem, is simply this, that the first moves in a field with which he is thoroughly acquainted, whereas the two latter are obliged to familiarise themselves with this field subsequently, and in a measure far transcending what is commonly required. In this process the mechanical engineer has at least always a definite goal before him and definite means to accomplish his aim, whilst in the case of the scientist that aim is in many instances presented only in vague and general outlines. Often the very formulation of the riddle devolves on him. Frequently it is not until the aim has been reached that the broader outlook requisite for systematic procedure is obtained. By far the larger portion of his success, therefore, is contingent on luck and instinct. It is immaterial, so far as its character is concerned, whether the process in question is brought rapidly to a conclusion in the brain of one man, or whether it is spun out for centuries in the minds of a long succession of thinkers. The same relation that a word solving a riddle bears to that riddle is borne by the modern conception of light to the facts discovered by Grimaldi, RAmer, Huygens, Newton, Young, Malus, and Fresnel, and only by the help of this slowly developed conception is our mental vision enabled to embrace the broad domain of facts in question.

A welcome complement to the discoveries which the history of civilisation and comparative psychology have furnished, is to be found in the confessions of great scientists and artists. Scientists and artists, we might say, for Liebig boldly declared there was no essential difference between the two. Are we to regard Leonardo da Vinci as a scientist or as an artist? If the artist builds up his work from a few motives, the scientist discovers the motives which permeate reality. If scientists like Lagrange or Fourier are in a certain measure artists in the presentation of their results, on the other hand, artists like Shakespeare or Ruysdael are scientists in the insight which must have preceded their creations.

Newton, when questioned about his methods of work, could give no other answer but that he was wont to ponder again and again on a subject; and similar utterances are accredited to D"Alembert and Helmholtz. Scientists and artists both recommend persistent labor. After the repeated survey of a field has afforded opportunity for the interposition of advantageous accidents, has rendered all the traits that suit with the mood or the dominant thought more vivid, and has gradually relegated to the background all things that are inappropriate, making their future appearance impossible; then from the teeming, swelling host of fancies which a free and high-flown imagination calls forth, suddenly that particular form arises to the light which harmonises perfectly with the ruling idea, mood, or design. Then it is that that which has resulted slowly as the result of a gradual selection, appears as if it were the outcome of a deliberate act of creation. Thus are to be explained the statements of Newton, Mozart, Richard Wagner, and others, when they say that thoughts, melodies, and harmonies had poured in upon them, and that they had simply retained the right ones. Undoubtedly, the man of genius, too, consciously or instinctively, pursues systematic methods wherever it is possible; but in his delicate presentiment he will omit many a task or abandon it after a hasty trial on which a less endowed man would squander his energies in vain. Thus, the genius accomplishes[91] in a brief s.p.a.ce of time undertakings for which the life of an ordinary man would far from suffice. We shall hardly go astray if we regard genius as only a slight deviation from the average mental endowment--as possessing simply a greater sensitiveness of cerebral reaction and a greater swiftness of reaction. The men who, obeying their inner impulses, make sacrifices for an idea instead of advancing their material welfare, may appear to the full-blooded Philistine as fools; yet we shall scarcely adopt Lombroso"s view, that genius is to be regarded as a disease, although it is unfortunately true that the sensitive brains and fragile const.i.tutions succ.u.mb most readily to sickness.

The remark of C. G. J. Jacobi that mathematics is slow of growth and only reaches the truth by long and devious paths, that the way to its discovery must be prepared for long beforehand, and that then the truth will make its long-deferred appearance as if impelled by some divine necessity[92]--all this holds true of every science. We are astounded often to note that it required the combined labors of many eminent thinkers for a full century to reach a truth which it takes us only a few hours to master and which once acquired seems extremely easy to reach under the right sort of circ.u.mstances. To our humiliation we learn that even the greatest men are born more for life than for science. The extent to which even they are indebted to accident--to that singular conflux of the physical and the psychical life in which the continuous but yet imperfect and never-ending adaptation of the latter to the former finds its distinct expression--that has been the subject of our remarks to-day. Jacobi"s poetical thought of a divine necessity acting in science will lose none of its loftiness for us if we discover in this necessity the same power that destroys the unfit and fosters the fit. For loftier, n.o.bler, and more romantic than poetry is the truth and the reality.

FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 81: Inaugural lecture delivered on a.s.suming the Professorship of the History and Theory of Inductive Science in the University of Vienna, October 21, 1895.]

[Footnote 82: The phrase is, Er hat das Pulver nicht erfunden.]

[Footnote 83: "Quod si quis tanta industria exst.i.tisset, ut ex naturae principiis at geometria hanc rem eruere potuisset, eum ego supra mortalium sortem ingenio valuisse dicendum crederem. Sed hoc tantum abest, ut fortuito reperti artificii rationem non adhuc satis explicari potuerint viri doctissimi."--Hugenii Dioptrica (de telescopiis).]

[Footnote 84: I must not be understood as saying that the fire-drill has played no part in the worship of fire or of the sun.]

[Footnote 85: Compare on this point the extremely interesting remarks of Dr. Paul Carus in his Philosophy of the Tool, Chicago, 1893.]

[Footnote 86: MAbius, Naturwissenschaftlicher Verein fAr Schleswig-Holstein, Kiel, 1893, p. 113 et seq.]

[Footnote 87: I am indebted for this observation to Professor Hatscheck.]

[Footnote 88: Cf. Hoppe, Entdecken und Finden, 1870.]

[Footnote 89: See the lecture "Sensations of Orientation," p. 282 et seq.]

[Footnote 90: This story was related to me by Jolly, and subsequently repeated in a letter from him.]

[Footnote 91: I do not know whether Swift"s academy of schemers in Lagado, in which great discoveries and inventions were made by a sort of verbal game of dice, was intended as a satire on Francis Bacon"s method of making discoveries by means of huge synoptic tables constructed by scribes. It certainly would not have been ill-placed.]

[Footnote 92: "Cresc.u.n.t disciplinae lente tardeque; per varios errores sero pervenitur ad veritatem. Omnia praeparata esse debent diuturno et a.s.siduo labore ad introitum veritatis novae. Jam illa certo temporis momento divina quadam necessitate coacta emerget."

Quoted by Simony, In ein ringfArmiges Band einen Knoten zu machen, Vienna, 1881, p. 41.]

ON SENSATIONS OF ORIENTATION.[93]

Through the co-operation of a succession of inquirers, among whom are particularly to be mentioned Goltz of Stra.s.sburg and Breuer of Vienna, considerable advances have been made during the last twenty-five years in our knowledge of the means by which we ascertain our position in s.p.a.ce and the direction of our motion, or orient ourselves, as the phrase goes. I presume that you are already acquainted with the physiological part of the processes with which our sensations of movement, or, more generally speaking, our sensations of orientation, are connected. Here I shall consider more particularly the physical side of the matter. In fact, I was originally led to the consideration of these questions by the observation of extremely simple and perfectly well-known physical facts, before I had any great acquaintance with physiology and while pursuing unbiasedly my natural thoughts; and I am of the conviction that the way which I have pursued, and which is entirely free from hypotheses, will, if you will follow my exposition, be that of easiest acquisition for the most of you.

No man of sound common sense could ever have doubted that a pressure or force is requisite to set a body in motion in a given direction and that a contrary pressure is required to stop suddenly a body in motion. Though the law of inertia was first formulated with anything like exactness by Galileo, the facts at the basis of it were known long previously to men of the stamp of Leonardo da Vinci, Rabelais, and others, and were ill.u.s.trated by them with appropriate experiments. Leonardo knew that by a swift stroke with a ruler one can knock out from a vertical column of checkers a single checker without over-throwing the column. The experiment with a coin resting on a piece of pasteboard covering a goblet, which falls into the goblet when the pasteboard is jerked away, like all experiments of the kind, is certainly very old.

With Galileo the experience in question a.s.sumes greater clearness and force. In the famous dialogue on the Copernican system which cost him his freedom, he explains the tides in an unfelicitous, though in principle correct manner, by the a.n.a.logue of a platter of water swung to and fro. In opposition to the Aristotelians of his time, who believed the descent of a heavy body could be accelerated by the superposition of another heavy body, he a.s.serted that a body could never be accelerated by one lying upon it unless the first in some way impeded the superposed body in its descent. To seek to press a falling body by means of another placed upon it, is as senseless as trying to prod a man with a lance when the man is speeding away from one with the same velocity as the lance. Even this little excursion into physics can explain much to us. You know the peculiar sensation which one has in falling, as when one jumps from a high springboard into the water, and which is also experienced in some measure at the beginning of the descent of elevators and swings. The reciprocal gravitational pressure of the different parts of our body, which is certainly felt in some manner, vanishes in free descent, or, in the case of the elevator, is diminished on the beginning of the descent. A similar sensation would be experienced if we were suddenly transported to the moon where the acceleration of gravity is much less than upon the earth. I was led to these considerations in 1866 by a suggestion in physics, and having also taken into account the alterations of the blood-pressure in the cases in question, I found I coincided without knowing it with Wollaston and Purkinje. The first as early as 1810 in his Croonian lecture had touched on the subject of sea-sickness and explained it by alterations of the blood-pressure, and later had laid similar considerations at the basis of his explanation of vertigo (1820-1826).[94]

Newton was the first to enunciate with perfect generality that a body can change the velocity and direction of its motion only by the action of a force, or the action of a second body. A corollary of this law which was first expressly deduced by Euler is that a body can never be set rotating or made to cease rotating of itself but only by forces and other bodies. For example, turn an open watch which has run down freely backwards and forwards in your hand. The balance-wheel will not fully catch the rapid rotations, it does not even respond fully to the elastic force of the spring which proves too weak to carry the wheel entirely with it.

Let us consider now that whether we move ourselves by means of our legs, or whether we are moved by a vehicle or a boat, at first only a part of our body is directly moved and the rest of it is afterwards set in motion by the first part. We see that pressures, pulls, and tensions are always produced between the parts of the body in this action, which pressures, pulls, and tensions give rise to sensations by which the forward or rotary movements in which we are engaged are made perceptible.[95] But it is quite natural that sensations so familiar should be little noticed and that attention should be drawn to them only under special circ.u.mstances when they occur unexpectedly or with unusual strength.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 45.]

Thus my attention was drawn to this point by the sensation of falling and subsequently by another singular occurrence. I was rounding a sharp railway curve once when I suddenly saw all the trees, houses, and factory chimneys along the track swerve from the vertical and a.s.sume a strikingly inclined position. What had hitherto appeared to me perfectly natural, namely, the fact that we distinguish the vertical so perfectly and sharply from every other direction, now struck me as enigmatical. Why is it that the same direction can now appear vertical to me and now cannot? By what is the vertical distinguished for us? (Compare Figure 45.) The rails are raised on the convex or outward side of the track in order to insure the stability of the carriage as against the action of the centrifugal force, the whole being so arranged that the combination of the force of gravity with the centrifugal force of the train shall give rise to a force perpendicular to the plane of the rails.

Let us a.s.sume, now, that under all circ.u.mstances we somehow sense the direction of the total resultant ma.s.s-acceleration whencesoever it may arise as the vertical. Then both the ordinary and the extraordinary phenomena will be alike rendered intelligible.[96]

I was now desirous of putting the view I had reached to a more convenient and exact test than was possible on a railway journey where one has no control over the determining circ.u.mstances and cannot alter them at will. I accordingly had the simple apparatus constructed which is represented in Figure 46.

In a large frame BB, which is fastened to the walls, rotates about a vertical axis AA a second frame RR, and within the latter a third one rr, which can be set at any distance and position from the axis, made stationary or movable, and is provided with a chair for the observer.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 46.

From Mach"s Bewegungsempfindungen, Leipsic, Engelmann, 1875.]

The observer takes his seat in the chair and to prevent disturbances of judgment is enclosed in a paper box. If the observer together with the frame rr be then set in uniform rotation, he will feel and see the beginning of the rotation both as to direction and amount very distinctly although every outward visible or tangible point of reference is wanting. If the motion be uniformly continued the sensation of rotation will gradually cease entirely and the observer will imagine himself at rest. But if rr be placed outside the axis of rotation, at once on the rotation beginning, a strikingly apparent, palpable, actually visible inclination of the entire paper box is produced, slight when the rotation is slow, strong when the rotation is rapid, and continuing as long as the rotation lasts. It is absolutely impossible for the observer to escape perceiving the inclination, although here also all outward points of reference are wanting. If the observer, for example, is seated so as to look towards the axis, he will feel the box strongly tipped backwards, as it necessarily must be if the direction of the total resultant force is perceived as the vertical. For other positions of the observer the situation is similar.[97]

Once, while performing one of these experiments, and after rotating so long that I was no longer conscious of the movement, I suddenly caused the apparatus to be stopped, whereupon I immediately felt and saw myself with the whole box rapidly flung round in rotation in the opposite direction, although I knew that the whole apparatus was at rest and every outward point of reference for the perception of motion was wanting. Every one who disbelieves in sensations of movement should be made acquainted with these phenomena. Had Newton known them and had he ever observed how we may actually imagine ourselves turned and displaced in s.p.a.ce without the a.s.sistance of stationary bodies as points of reference, he would certainly have been confirmed more than ever in his unfortunate speculations regarding absolute s.p.a.ce.

The sensation of rotation in the opposite direction after the apparatus has been stopped, slowly and gradually ceases. But on accidentally inclining my head once during this occurrence, the axis of apparent rotation was also observed to incline in exactly the same manner both as to direction and as to amount. It is accordingly clear that the acceleration or r.e.t.a.r.dation of rotation is felt. The acceleration operates as a stimulus. The sensation, however, like almost all sensations, though it gradually decreases, lasts perceptibly longer than the stimulus. Hence the long continued apparent rotation after the stopping of the apparatus. The organ, however, which causes the persistence of this sensation must have its seat in the head, since otherwise the axis of apparent rotation could not a.s.sume the same motion as the head.

If I were to say, now, that a light had flashed upon me in making these last observations, the expression would be a feeble one. I ought to say I experienced a perfect illumination. My juvenile experiences of vertigo occurred to me. I remembered Flourens"s experiments relative to the section of the semi-circular ca.n.a.ls of the labyrinths of doves and rabbits, where this inquirer had observed phenomena similar to vertigo, but which he preferred to interpret, from his bias to the acoustic theory of the labyrinth, as the expression of painful auditive disturbances. I saw that Goltz had nearly but not quite hit the bull"s eye with his theory of the semi-circular ca.n.a.ls. This inquirer, who, from his happy habit of following his own natural thoughts without regard for tradition, has cleared up so much in science, spoke, as early as 1870, on the ground of experiments, as follows: "It is uncertain whether the semi-circular ca.n.a.ls are auditive organs or not. In any event they form an apparatus which serves for the preservation of equilibrium. They are, so to speak, the sense-organs of equilibrium of the head and indirectly of the whole body." I remembered the galvanic dizziness which had been observed by Ritter and Purkinje on the pa.s.sage of a current through the head, when the persons experimented upon imagined they were falling towards the cathode. The experiment was immediately repeated, and sometime later (1874) I was enabled to demonstrate the same objectively with fishes, all of which placed themselves sidewise and in the same direction in the field of the current as if at command.[98] MAller"s doctrine of specific energies now appeared to me to bring all these new and old observations into a simple, connected unity.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 47.

The labyrinth of a dove (stereoscopically reproduced), from R. Ewald, Nervus Octavus, Wiesbaden, Bergmann, 1892.]

Let us picture to ourselves the labyrinth of the ear with its three semi-circular ca.n.a.ls lying in three mutually perpendicular planes (Comp. Fig. 47), the mysterious position of which inquirers have endeavored to explain in every possible and impossible way. Let us conceive the nerves of the ampullA, or the dilated extensions of the semi-circular ca.n.a.ls, equipped with a capacity for responding to every imaginable stimulus with a sensation of rotation just as the nerves of the retina of the eye when excited by pressures, by electrical or chemical stimuli always respond with the sensation of light; let us picture to ourselves, further, that the usual excitation of the ampullA nerves is produced by the inertia of the contents of the semi-circular ca.n.a.ls, which contents on suitable rotations in the plane of the semi-circular ca.n.a.l are left behind in the motion, or at least have a tendency to remain behind and consequently exert a pressure. It will be seen that on this supposition all the single facts which without the theory appear as so many different individual phenomena, become from this single point of view clear and intelligible.

I had the satisfaction, immediately after the communication in which I set forth this idea,[99] of seeing a paper by Breuer appear[100] in which this author had arrived by entirely different methods at results that agreed in all essential points with my own. A few weeks later appeared the researches of Crum Brown of Edinburgh, whose methods were even still nearer mine. Breuer"s paper was far richer in physiological respects than mine, and he had particularly gone into greater detail in his investigation of the collateral effects of the reflex motions and orientation of the eyes in the phenomena under consideration.[101] In addition certain experiments which I had suggested in my paper as a test of the correctness of the view in question had already been performed by Breuer. Breuer has also rendered services of the highest order in the further elaboration of this field. But in a physical regard, my paper was, of course, more complete.

In order to portray to the eye the behavior of the semi-circular ca.n.a.ls, I have constructed here a little apparatus. (See Fig. 48.) The large rotatable disc represents the osseous semi-circular ca.n.a.l, which is continuous with the bones of the head; the small disc, which is free to rotate on the axis of the first, represents the mobile and partly liquid contents of the semi-circular ca.n.a.l. On rotating the large disc, the small disc as you see remains behind. I have to turn some time before the small disc is carried along with the large one by friction. But if I now stop the large disc the small disc as you see continues to rotate.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 48.

Model representing the action of the semi-circular ca.n.a.ls.]

Simply a.s.sume now that the rotation of the small disc, say in the direction of the hands of a watch, would give rise to a sensation of rotation in the opposite direction, and conversely, and you already understand a good portion of the facts above set forth. The explanation still holds, even if the small disc does not perform appreciable rotations but is checked by a contrivance similar to an elastic spring, the tension of which disengages a sensation. Conceive, now, three such contrivances with their mutually perpendicular planes of rotation joined together so as to form a single apparatus; then to this apparatus as a whole, no rotation can be imparted without its being indicated by the small mobile discs or by the springs which are attached to them. Conceive both the right and the left ear equipped with such an apparatus, and you will find that it answers all the purposes of the semi-circular ca.n.a.ls, which you see represented stereoscopically in Fig. 47 for the ear of a dove.

Of the many experiments which I have made on my own person, and the results of which could be predicted by the new view according to the behavior of the model and consequently according to the rules of mechanics, I shall cite but one. I fasten a horizontal board in the frame RR of my rotatory apparatus, lie down upon the same with my right ear upon the board, and cause the apparatus to be uniformly rotated. As soon as I no longer perceive the rotation, I turn around upon my left ear and immediately the sensation of rotation again starts up with marked vividness. The experiment can be repeated as often as one wishes. A slight turn of the head even is sufficient for reviving the sensation of rotation which in the perfectly quiescent state at once disappears altogether.

We will imitate the experiment on the model. I turn the large disc until finally the small disc is carried along with it. If, now, while the rotation continues uniform, I burn off a little thread which you see here, the small disc will be flipped round by a spring into its own plane 180, so as now to present its opposite side to you, when the rotation at once begins in the opposite direction.

We have consequently a very simple means for determining whether one is actually the subject or not of uniform and imperceptible rotations. If the earth rotated much more rapidly than it really does, or if our semi-circular ca.n.a.ls were much more sensitive, a Nansen sleeping at the North Pole would be waked by a sensation of rotation every time he turned over. Foucault"s pendulum experiment as a demonstration of the earth"s rotation would be superfluous under such circ.u.mstances. The only reason we cannot prove the rotation of the earth with the help of our model, lies in the small angular velocity of the earth and in the consequent liability to great experimental errors.[102]

Aristotle has said that "The sweetest of all things is knowledge." And he is right. But if you were to suppose that the publication of a new view were productive of unbounded sweetness, you would be mightily mistaken. No one disturbs his fellow-men with a new view unpunished. Nor should the fact be made a subject of reproach to these fellow-men. To presume to revolutionise the current way of thinking with regard to any question, is no pleasant task, and above all not an easy one. They who have advanced new views know best what serious difficulties stand in their way. With honest and praiseworthy zeal, men set to work in search of everything that does not suit with them. They seek to discover whether they cannot explain the facts better or as well, or approximately as well, by the traditional views. And that, too, is justified. But at times some extremely artless animadversions are heard that almost nonplus us. "If a sixth sense existed it could not fail to have been discovered thousands of years ago." Indeed; there was a time, then, when only seven planets could have existed! But I do not believe that any one will lay any weight on the philological question whether the set of phenomena which we have been considering should be called a sense. The phenomena will not disappear when the name disappears. It was further said to me that animals exist which have no labyrinth, but which can yet orientate themselves, and that consequently the labyrinth has nothing to do with orientation. We do not walk forsooth with our legs, because snakes propel themselves without them!

But if the promulgator of a new idea cannot hope for any great pleasure from its publication, yet the critical process which his views undergo is extremely helpful to the subject-matter of them. All the defects which necessarily adhere to the new view are gradually discovered and eliminated. Over-rating and exaggeration give way to more sober estimates. And so it came about that it was found unpermissible to attribute all functions of orientation exclusively to the labyrinth. In these critical labors Delage, Aubert, Breuer, Ewald, and others have rendered distinguished services. It can also not fail to happen that fresh facts become known in this process which could have been predicted by the new view, which actually were predicted in part, and which consequently furnish a support for the new view. Breuer and Ewald succeeded in electrically and mechanically exciting the labyrinth, and even single parts of the labyrinth, and thus in producing the movements that belong to such stimuli. It was shown that when the semi-circular ca.n.a.ls were absent vertigo could not be produced, when the entire labyrinth was removed the orientation of the head was no longer possible, that without the labyrinth galvanic vertigo could not be induced. I myself constructed as early as 1875 an apparatus for observing animals in rotation, which was subsequently reinvented in various forms and has since received the name of "cyclostat."[103] In experiments with the most varied kinds of animals it was shown that, for example, the larvA of frogs are not subject to vertigo until their semi-circular ca.n.a.ls which at the start are wanting are developed (K. SchAfer). A large percentage of the deaf and dumb are afflicted with grave affections of the labyrinth. The American psychologist, William James, has made whirling experiments with many deaf and dumb subjects, and in a large number of them found that susceptibility to giddiness is wanting. He also found that many deaf and dumb people on being ducked under water, whereby they lose their weight and consequently have no longer the full a.s.sistance of their muscular sense, utterly lose their sense of position in s.p.a.ce, do not know which is up and which is down, and are thrown into the greatest consternation,--results which do not occur in normal men. Such facts are convincing proof that we do not orientate ourselves entirely by means of the labyrinth, important as it is for us. Dr. Kreidl has made experiments similar to those of James and found that not only is vertigo absent in deaf and dumb people when whirled about, but that also the reflex movements of the eyes which are normally induced by the labyrinth are wanting. Finally, Dr. Pollak has found that galvanic vertigo does not exist in a large percentage of the deaf and dumb. Neither the jerking movements nor the uniform movements of the eyes were observed which normal human beings exhibit in the Ritter and Purkinje experiment.

After the physicist has arrived at the idea that the semi-circular ca.n.a.ls are the organ of sensation of rotation or of angular acceleration, he is next constrained to ask for the organs that mediate the sensation of acceleration noticed in forward movements. In searching for an organ for this function, he of course is not apt to select one that stands in no anatomical and spatial relation with the semi-circular ca.n.a.ls. And in addition there are physiological considerations to be weighed. The preconceived opinion once having been abandoned that the entire labyrinth is auditory in its function, there remains after the cochlea is reserved for sensations of tone and the semi-circular ca.n.a.ls for the sensation of angular acceleration, the vestibule for the discharge of additional functions. The vestibule, particularly the part of it known as the sacculus, appeared to me, by reason of the so-called otoliths which it contains, eminently adapted for being the organ of sensation of forward acceleration or of the position of the head. In this conjecture I again closely coincided with Breuer.

That a sensation of position, of direction and amount of ma.s.s-acceleration exists, our experience in elevators as well as of movement in curved paths is sufficient proof. I have also attempted to produce and destroy suddenly great velocities of forward movement by means of various contrivances of which I shall mention only one here. If, while enclosed in the paper box of my large whirling apparatus at some distance from the axis, my body is in uniform rotation which I no longer feel, and I then loosen the connexions of the frame rr with R thus making the former moveable and I then suddenly stop the larger frame, my forward motion is abruptly impeded while the frame rr continues to rotate. I imagine now that I am speeding on in a straight line in a direction opposite to that of the checked motion. Unfortunately, for many reasons it cannot be proved convincingly that the organ in question has its seat in the head. According to the opinion of Delage, the labyrinth has nothing to do with this particular sensation of movement. Breuer, on the other hand, is of the opinion that the organ of forward movement in man is stunted and the persistence of the sensation in question is too brief to permit our inst.i.tuting experiments as obvious as in the case of rotation. In fact, Crum Brown once observed while in an irritated condition peculiar vertical phenomena in his own person, which were all satisfactorily explained by an abnormally long persistence of the sensation of rotation, and I myself in an a.n.a.logous case on the stopping of a railway train felt the apparent backward motion in striking intensity and for an unusual length of time.

There is no doubt whatever that we feel changes of vertical acceleration, and it will appear from the following extremely probable that the otoliths of the vestibule are the sense-organ for the direction of the ma.s.s-acceleration. It will then be incompatible with a really logical view to regard the latter as incapable of sensing horizontal accelerations.

In the lower animals the a.n.a.logue of the labyrinth is shrunk to a little vesicle filled with a liquid and containing tiny crystals, auditive stones, or otoliths, of greater specific gravity, suspended on minute hairs. These crystals appear physically well adapted for indicating both the direction of gravity and the direction of incipient movements. That they discharge the former function, Delage was the first to convince himself by experiments with lower animals which on the removal of the otoliths utterly lost their bearings and could no longer regain their normal position. Loeb also found that fishes without labyrinths swim now on their bellies and now on their backs. But the most remarkable, most beautiful, and most convincing experiment is that which Dr. Kreidl inst.i.tuted with crustaceans. According to Hensen, certain Crustacea on sloughing spontaneously introduce fine grains of sand as auditive stones into their otolith vesicle. At the ingenious suggestion of S. Exner, Dr. Kreidl constrained some of these animals to put up with iron filings (ferrum limatum). If the pole of an electro-magnet be brought near the animal, it will at once turn its back away from the pole accompanying the movement with appropriate reflex motions of the eye the moment the current is closed, exactly as if gravity had been brought to bear upon the animal in the same direction as the magnetic force.[104] This, in fact, is what should be expected from the function ascribed to the otoliths. If the eyes be covered with asphalt varnish, and the auditive sacs removed, the crustaceans lose their sense of direction utterly, tumble head over heels, lie on their side or their back indifferently. This does not happen when the eyes only are covered. For vertebrates, Breuer has demonstrated by searching investigations that the otoliths, or better, statoliths, slide in three planes parallel to the planes of the semi-circular ca.n.a.ls, and are consequently perfectly adapted for indicating changes both in the amount and the direction of the ma.s.s-acceleration.[105]

I have already remarked that not every function of orientation can be ascribed exclusively to the labyrinth. The deaf and dumb who have to be immersed in water, and the crustaceans who must have their eyes closed if they are to be perfectly disorientated, are proof of this fact. I saw a blind cat at Hering"s laboratory which to one who was not a very attentive observer behaved exactly like a seeing cat. It played nimbly with objects rolling on the floor, stuck its head inquisitively into open drawers, sprang dexterously upon chairs, ran with perfect accuracy through open doors, and never b.u.mped against closed ones. The visual sense had here been rapidly replaced by the tactual and auditive senses. And it appears from Ewald"s investigations that even after the labyrinths have been removed, animals gradually learn to move about again quite in the normal fashion, presumably because the eliminated function of the labyrinth is now performed by some part of the brain. A certain peculiar weakness of the muscles alone is perceptible which Ewald ascribes to the absence of the stimulus which is otherwise constantly emitted by the labyrinth (the labyrinth-tonus). But if the part of the brain which discharges the deputed function be removed, the animals are again completely disorientated and absolutely helpless.

It may be said that the views enunciated by Breuer, Crum Brown and myself in 1873 and 1874, and which are substantially a fuller and richer development of Goltz"s idea, have upon the whole been substantiated. At least they have exercised a helpful and stimulative influence. New problems have of course arisen in the course of the investigation which still await solution, and much work remains to be done. At the same time we see how fruitful the renewed co-operation of the various special departments of science may become after a period of isolation and invigorating labor apart.

I may be permitted, therefore, to consider the relation between hearing and orientation from another and more general point of view. What we call the auditive organ is in the lower animals simply a sac containing auditive stones. As we ascend the scale, 1, 2, 3 semi-circular ca.n.a.ls gradually develop from them, whilst the structure of the otolith organ itself becomes more complicated. Finally, in the higher vertebrates, and particularly in the mammals, a part of the latter organ (the lagena) becomes the cochlea, which Helmholtz explained as the organ for sensations of tone. In the belief that the entire labyrinth was an auditive organ, Helmholtz, contrary to the results of his own masterly a.n.a.lysis, originally sought to interpret another part of the labyrinth as the organ of noises. I showed a long time ago (1873) that every tonal stimulus by shortening the duration of the excitation to a few vibrations, gradually loses its character of pitch and takes on that of a sharp, dry report or noise.[106] All the intervening stages between tones and noises can be exhibited. Such being the case, it will hardly be a.s.sumed that one organ is suddenly and at some given point replaced in function by another. On the basis of different experiments and reasonings S. Exner also regards the a.s.sumption of a special organ for the sensing of noises as unnecessary.

If we will but reflect how small a portion of the labyrinth of higher animals is apparently in the service of the sense of hearing, and how large, on the other hand, the portion is which very likely serves the purposes of orientation, how much the first anatomical beginnings of the auditive sac of lower animals resemble that part of the fully developed labyrinth which does not hear, the view is irresistibly suggested which Breuer and I (1874, 1875) expressed, that the auditive organ took its development from an organ for sensing movements by adaptation to weak periodic motional stimuli, and that many apparatuses in the lower animals which are held to be organs of hearing are not auditive organs at all.[107]

This view appears to be perceptibly gaining ground. Dr. Kreidl by skilfully-planned experiments has arrived at the conclusion that even fishes do not hear, whereas E. H. Weber, in his day, regarded the ossicles which unite the air-bladder of fishes with the labyrinth as organs expressly designed for conducting sound from the former to the latter.[108] StArensen has investigated the excitation of sounds by the air-bladder of fishes, as also the conduction of shocks through Weber"s ossicles. He regards the air-bladder as particularly adapted for receiving the noises made by other fishes and conducting them to the labyrinth. He has heard the loud grunting tones of the fishes in South American rivers, and is of the opinion that they allure and find each other in this manner. According to these views certain fishes are neither deaf nor dumb.[109] The question here involved might be solved perhaps by sharply distinguishing between the sensation of hearing proper, and the perception of shocks. The first-mentioned sensation may, even in the case of many vertebrates, be extremely restricted, or perhaps even absolutely wanting. But besides the auditive function, Weber"s ossicles may perfectly well discharge some other function. Although, as Moreau has shown, the air-bladder itself is not an organ of equilibrium in the simple physical sense of Borelli, yet doubtless some function of this character is still reserved for it. The union with the labyrinth favors this conception, and so a host of new problems rises here before us.

I should like to close with a reminiscence from the year 1863. Helmholtz"s Sensations of Tone had just been published and the function of the cochlea now appeared clear to the whole world. In a private conversation which I had with a physician, the latter declared it to be an almost hopeless undertaking to seek to fathom the function of the other parts of the labyrinth, whereas I in youthful boldness maintained that the question could hardly fail to be solved, and that very soon, although of course I had then no glimmering of how it was to be done. Ten years later the question was substantially solved.

To-day, after having tried my powers frequently and in vain on many questions, I no longer believe that we can make short work of the problems of science. Nevertheless, I should not consider an "ignorabimus" as an expression of modesty, but rather as the opposite. That expression is a suitable one only with regard to problems which are wrongly formulated and which are therefore not problems at all. Every real problem can and will be solved in due course of time without supernatural divination, entirely by accurate observation and close, searching thought.

FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 93: A lecture delivered on February 24, 1897, before the Verein zur Verbreitung naturwissenschaftlicher Kenntnisse in Wien.]

[Footnote 94: Wollaston, Philosophical Transactions, Royal Society, 1810. In the same place Wollaston also describes and explains the creaking of the muscles. My attention was recently called to this work by Dr. W. Pascheles.--Cf. also Purkinje, Prager medicin. JahrbAcher, Bd. 6, Wien, 1820.]

[Footnote 95: Similarly many external forces do not act at once on all parts of the earth, and the internal forces which produce deformations act at first immediately only upon limited parts. If the earth were a feeling being, the tides and other terrestrial events would provoke in it similar sensations to those of our movements. Perhaps the slight alterations of the alt.i.tude of the pole which are at present being studied are connected with the continual slight deformations of the central ellipsoid occasioned by seismical happenings.]

[Footnote 96: For the popular explanation by unconscious inference the matter is extremely simple. We regard the railway carriage as vertical and unconsciously infer the inclination of the trees. Of course the opposite conclusion that we regard the trees as vertical and infer the inclination of the carriage, unfortunately, is equally clear on this theory.]

[Footnote 97: It will be observed that my way of thinking and experimenting here is related to that which led Knight to the discovery and investigation of t

Prev List Next