External objects, for instance, for which the word _object_ was invented, are really _objects_ and not fleeting and fugitive appearances, because they are not only groups of sensations, but groups cemented by a constant bond. It is this bond, and this bond alone, which is the object in itself, and this bond is a relation.
Therefore, when we ask what is the objective value of science, that does not mean: Does science teach us the true nature of things? but it means: Does it teach us the true relations of things?
To the first question, no one would hesitate to reply, no; but I think we may go farther; not only science can not teach us the nature of things; but nothing is capable of teaching it to us, and if any G.o.d knew it, he could not find words to express it. Not only can we not divine the response, but if it were given to us we could understand nothing of it; I ask myself even whether we really understand the question.
When, therefore, a scientific theory pretends to teach us what heat is, or what is electricity, or life, it is condemned beforehand; all it can give us is only a crude image. It is, therefore, provisional and crumbling.
The first question being out of reason, the second remains. Can science teach us the true relations of things? What it joins together should that be put asunder, what it puts asunder should that be joined together?
To understand the meaning of this new question, it is needful to refer to what was said above on the conditions of objectivity. Have these relations an objective value? That means: Are these relations the same for all? Will they still be the same for those who shall come after us?
It is clear that they are not the same for the scientist and the ignorant person. But that is unimportant, because if the ignorant person does not see them all at once, the scientist may succeed in making him see them by a series of experiments and reasonings. The thing essential is that there are points on which all those acquainted with the experiments made can reach accord.
The question is to know whether this accord will be durable and whether it will persist for our successors. It may be asked whether the unions that the science of to-day makes will be confirmed by the science of to-morrow. To affirm that it will be so we can not invoke any _a priori_ reason; but this is a question of fact, and science has already lived long enough for us to be able to find out by asking its history whether the edifices it builds stand the test of time, or whether they are only ephemeral constructions.
Now what do we see? At the first blush, it seems to us that the theories last only a day and that ruins upon ruins acc.u.mulate. To-day the theories are born, to-morrow they are the fashion, the day after to-morrow they are cla.s.sic, the fourth day they are superannuated, and the fifth they are forgotten. But if we look more closely, we see that what thus succ.u.mb are the theories properly so called, those which pretend to teach us what things are. But there is in them something which usually survives. If one of them taught us a true relation, this relation is definitively acquired, and it will be found again under a new disguise in the other theories which will successively come to reign in place of the old.
Take only a single example: The theory of the undulations of the ether taught us that light is a motion; to-day fashion favors the electromagnetic theory which teaches us that light is a current. We do not consider whether we could reconcile them and say that light is a current, and that this current is a motion. As it is probable in any case that this motion would not be identical with that which the partisans of the old theory presume, we might think ourselves justified in saying that this old theory is dethroned. And yet something of it remains, since between the hypothetical currents which Maxwell supposes there are the same relations as between the hypothetical motions that Fresnel supposed. There is, therefore, something which remains over and this something is the essential. This it is which explains how we see the present physicists pa.s.s without any embarra.s.sment from the language of Fresnel to that of Maxwell. Doubtless many connections that were believed well established have been abandoned, but the greatest number remain and it would seem must remain.
And for these, then, what is the measure of their objectivity? Well, it is precisely the same as for our belief in external objects. These latter are real in this, that the sensations they make us feel appear to us as united to each other by I know not what indestructible cement and not by the hazard of a day. In the same way science reveals to us between phenomena other bonds finer but not less solid; these are threads so slender that they long remained unperceived, but once noticed there remains no way of not seeing them; they are therefore not less real than those which give their reality to external objects; small matter that they are more recently known, since neither can perish before the other.
It may be said, for instance, that the ether is no less real than any external body; to say this body exists is to say there is between the color of this body, its taste, its smell, an intimate bond, solid and persistent; to say the ether exists is to say there is a natural kinship between all the optical phenomena, and neither of the two propositions has less value than the other.
And the scientific syntheses have in a sense even more reality than those of the ordinary senses, since they embrace more terms and tend to absorb in them the partial syntheses.
It will be said that science is only a cla.s.sification and that a cla.s.sification can not be true, but convenient. But it is true that it is convenient, it is true that it is so not only for me, but for all men; it is true that it will remain convenient for our descendants; it is true finally that this can not be by chance.
In sum, the sole objective reality consists in the relations of things whence results the universal harmony. Doubtless these relations, this harmony, could not be conceived outside of a mind which conceives them.
But they are nevertheless objective because they are, will become, or will remain, common to all thinking beings.
This will permit us to revert to the question of the rotation of the earth which will give us at the same time a chance to make clear what precedes by an example.
7. _The Rotation of the Earth_
"... Therefore," have I said in _Science and Hypothesis_, "this affirmation, the earth turns round, has no meaning ... or rather these two propositions, the earth turns round, and, it is more convenient to suppose that the earth turns round, have one and the same meaning."
These words have given rise to the strangest interpretations. Some have thought they saw in them the rehabilitation of Ptolemy"s system, and perhaps the justification of Galileo"s condemnation.
Those who had read attentively the whole volume could not, however, delude themselves. This truth, the earth turns round, was put on the same footing as Euclid"s postulate, for example. Was that to reject it?
But better; in the same language it may very well be said: These two propositions, the external world exists, or, it is more convenient to suppose that it exists, have one and the same meaning. So the hypothesis of the rotation of the earth would have the same degree of cert.i.tude as the very existence of external objects.
But after what we have just explained in the fourth part, we may go farther. A physical theory, we have said, is by so much the more true as it puts in evidence more true relations. In the light of this new principle, let us examine the question which occupies us.
No, there is no absolute s.p.a.ce; these two contradictory propositions: "The earth turns round" and "The earth does not turn round" are, therefore, neither of them more true than the other. To affirm one while denying the other, _in the kinematic sense_, would be to admit the existence of absolute s.p.a.ce.
But if the one reveals true relations that the other hides from us, we can nevertheless regard it as physically more true than the other, since it has a richer content. Now in this regard no doubt is possible.
Behold the apparent diurnal motion of the stars, and the diurnal motion of the other heavenly bodies, and besides, the flattening of the earth, the rotation of Foucault"s pendulum, the gyration of cyclones, the trade-winds, what not else? For the Ptolemaist all these phenomena have no bond between them; for the Copernican they are produced by the one same cause. In saying, the earth turns round, I affirm that all these phenomena have an intimate relation, and _that is true_, and that remains true, although there is not and can not be absolute s.p.a.ce.
So much for the rotation of the earth upon itself; what shall we say of its revolution around the sun? Here again, we have three phenomena which for the Ptolemaist are absolutely independent and which for the Copernican are referred back to the same origin; they are the apparent displacements of the planets on the celestial sphere, the aberration of the fixed stars, the parallax of these same stars. Is it by chance that all the planets admit an inequality whose period is a year, and that this period is precisely equal to that of aberration, precisely equal besides to that of parallax? To adopt Ptolemy"s system is to answer, yes; to adopt that of Copernicus is to answer, no; this is to affirm that there is a bond between the three phenomena, and that also is true, although there is no absolute s.p.a.ce.
In Ptolemy"s system, the motions of the heavenly bodies can not be explained by the action of central forces, celestial mechanics is impossible. The intimate relations that celestial mechanics reveals to us between all the celestial phenomena are true relations; to affirm the immobility of the earth would be to deny these relations, that would be to fool ourselves.
The truth for which Galileo suffered remains, therefore, the truth, although it has not altogether the same meaning as for the vulgar, and its true meaning is much more subtle, more profound and more rich.
8. _Science for Its Own Sake_
Not against M. LeRoy do I wish to defend science for its own sake; maybe this is what he condemns, but this is what he cultivates, since he loves and seeks truth and could not live without it. But I have some thoughts to express.
We can not know all facts and it is necessary to choose those which are worthy of being known. According to Tolstoi, scientists make this choice at random, instead of making it, which would be reasonable, with a view to practical applications. On the contrary, scientists think that certain facts are more interesting than others, because they complete an unfinished harmony, or because they make one foresee a great number of other facts. If they are wrong, if this hierarchy of facts that they implicitly postulate is only an idle illusion, there could be no science for its own sake, and consequently there could be no science. As for me, I believe they are right, and, for example, I have shown above what is the high value of astronomical facts, not because they are capable of practical applications, but because they are the most instructive of all.
It is only through science and art that civilization is of value. Some have wondered at the formula: science for its own sake; and yet it is as good as life for its own sake, if life is only misery; and even as happiness for its own sake, if we do not believe that all pleasures are of the same quality, if we do not wish to admit that the goal of civilization is to furnish alcohol to people who love to drink.
Every act should have an aim. We must suffer, we must work, we must pay for our place at the game, but this is for seeing"s sake; or at the very least that others may one day see.
All that is not thought is pure nothingness; since we can think only thoughts and all the words we use to speak of things can express only thoughts, to say there is something other than thought, is therefore an affirmation which can have no meaning.
And yet--strange contradiction for those who believe in time--geologic history shows us that life is only a short episode between two eternities of death, and that, even in this episode, conscious thought has lasted and will last only a moment. Thought is only a gleam in the midst of a long night.
But it is this gleam which is everything.
SCIENCE AND METHOD
INTRODUCTION
I bring together here different studies relating more or less directly to questions of scientific methodology. The scientific method consists in observing and experimenting; if the scientist had at his disposal infinite time, it would only be necessary to say to him: "Look and notice well"; but, as there is not time to see everything, and as it is better not to see than to see wrongly, it is necessary for him to make choice. The first question, therefore, is how he should make this choice. This question presents itself as well to the physicist as to the historian; it presents itself equally to the mathematician, and the principles which should guide each are not without a.n.a.logy. The scientist conforms to them instinctively, and one can, reflecting on these principles, foretell the future of mathematics.
We shall understand them better yet if we observe the scientist at work, and first of all it is necessary to know the psychologic mechanism of invention and, in particular, that of mathematical creation. Observation of the processes of the work of the mathematician is particularly instructive for the psychologist.
In all the sciences of observation account must be taken of the errors due to the imperfections of our senses and our instruments. Luckily, we may a.s.sume that, under certain conditions, these errors are in part self-compensating, so as to disappear in the average; this compensation is due to chance. But what is chance? This idea is difficult to justify or even to define; and yet what I have just said about the errors of observation, shows that the scientist can not neglect it. It therefore is necessary to give a definition as precise as possible of this concept, so indispensable yet so illusive.