But at the moment of formulating this conclusion I am seized with scruples. At the outset I distinguished two kinds of mathematical minds, the one sort logicians and a.n.a.lysts, the others intuitionalists and geometers. Well, the a.n.a.lysts also have been inventors. The names I have just cited make my insistence on this unnecessary.
Here is a contradiction, at least apparently, which needs explanation.
And first, do you think these logicians have always proceeded from the general to the particular, as the rules of formal logic would seem to require of them? Not thus could they have extended the boundaries of science; scientific conquest is to be made only by generalization.
In one of the chapters of "Science and Hypothesis," I have had occasion to study the nature of mathematical reasoning, and I have shown how this reasoning, without ceasing to be absolutely rigorous, could lift us from the particular to the general by a procedure I have called _mathematical induction_. It is by this procedure that the a.n.a.lysts have made science progress, and if we examine the detail itself of their demonstrations, we shall find it there at each instant beside the cla.s.sic syllogism of Aristotle. We, therefore, see already that the a.n.a.lysts are not simply makers of syllogisms after the fashion of the scholastics.
Besides, do you think they have always marched step by step with no vision of the goal they wished to attain? They must have divined the way leading thither, and for that they needed a guide. This guide is, first, a.n.a.logy. For example, one of the methods of demonstration dear to a.n.a.lysts is that founded on the employment of dominant functions. We know it has already served to solve a mult.i.tude of problems; in what consists then the role of the inventor who wishes to apply it to a new problem? At the outset he must recognize the a.n.a.logy of this question with those which have already been solved by this method; then he must perceive in what way this new question differs from the others, and thence deduce the modifications necessary to apply to the method.
But how does one perceive these a.n.a.logies and these differences? In the example just cited they are almost always evident, but I could have found others where they would have been much more deeply hidden; often a very uncommon penetration is necessary for their discovery. The a.n.a.lysts, not to let these hidden a.n.a.logies escape them, that is, in order to be inventors, must, without the aid of the senses and imagination, have a direct sense of what const.i.tutes the unity of a piece of reasoning, of what makes, so to speak, its soul and inmost life.
When one talked with M. Hermite, he never evoked a sensuous image, and yet you soon perceived that the most abstract ent.i.ties were for him like living beings. He did not see them, but he perceived that they are not an artificial a.s.semblage and that they have some principle of internal unity.
But, one will say, that still is intuition. Shall we conclude that the distinction made at the outset was only apparent, that there is only one sort of mind and that all the mathematicians are intuitionalists, at least those who are capable of inventing?
No, our distinction corresponds to something real. I have said above that there are many kinds of intuition. I have said how much the intuition of pure number, whence comes rigorous mathematical induction, differs from sensible intuition to which the imagination, properly so called, is the princ.i.p.al contributor.
Is the abyss which separates them less profound than it at first appeared? Could we recognize with a little attention that this pure intuition itself could not do without the aid of the senses? This is the affair of the psychologist and the metaphysician and I shall not discuss the question. But the thing"s being doubtful is enough to justify me in recognizing and affirming an essential difference between the two kinds of intuition; they have not the same object and seem to call into play two different faculties of our soul; one would think of two search-lights directed upon two worlds strangers to one another.
It is the intuition of pure number, that of pure logical forms, which illumines and directs those we have called _a.n.a.lysts_. This it is which enables them not alone to demonstrate, but also to invent. By it they perceive at a glance the general plan of a logical edifice, and that too without the senses appearing to intervene. In rejecting the aid of the imagination, which, as we have seen, is not always infallible, they can advance without fear of deceiving themselves. Happy, therefore, are those who can do without this aid! We must admire them; but how rare they are!
Among the a.n.a.lysts there will then be inventors, but they will be few.
The majority of us, if we wished to see afar by pure intuition alone, would soon feel ourselves seized with vertigo. Our weakness has need of a staff more solid, and, despite the exceptions of which we have just spoken, it is none the less true that sensible intuition is in mathematics the most usual instrument of invention.
Apropos of these reflections, a question comes up that I have not the time either to solve or even to enunciate with the developments it would admit of. Is there room for a new distinction, for distinguishing among the a.n.a.lysts those who above all use pure intuition and those who are first of all preoccupied with formal logic?
M. Hermite, for example, whom I have just cited, can not be cla.s.sed among the geometers who make use of the sensible intuition; but neither is he a logician, properly so called. He does not conceal his aversion to purely deductive procedures which start from the general and end in the particular.
CHAPTER II
THE MEASURE OF TIME
I
So long as we do not go outside the domain of consciousness, the notion of time is relatively clear. Not only do we distinguish without difficulty present sensation from the remembrance of past sensations or the antic.i.p.ation of future sensations, but we know perfectly well what we mean when we say that of two conscious phenomena which we remember, one was anterior to the other; or that, of two foreseen conscious phenomena, one will be anterior to the other.
When we say that two conscious facts are simultaneous, we mean that they profoundly interpenetrate, so that a.n.a.lysis can not separate them without mutilating them.
The order in which we arrange conscious phenomena does not admit of any arbitrariness. It is imposed upon us and of it we can change nothing.
I have only a single observation to add. For an aggregate of sensations to have become a remembrance capable of cla.s.sification in time, it must have ceased to be actual, we must have lost the sense of its infinite complexity, otherwise it would have remained present. It must, so to speak, have crystallized around a center of a.s.sociations of ideas which will be a sort of label. It is only when they thus have lost all life that we can cla.s.sify our memories in time as a botanist arranges dried flowers in his herbarium.
But these labels can only be finite in number. On that score, psychologic time should be discontinuous. Whence comes the feeling that between any two instants there are others? We arrange our recollections in time, but we know that there remain empty compartments. How could that be, if time were not a form pre-existent in our minds? How could we know there were empty compartments, if these compartments were revealed to us only by their content?
II
But that is not all; into this form we wish to put not only the phenomena of our own consciousness, but those of which other consciousnesses are the theater. But more, we wish to put there physical facts, these I know not what with which we people s.p.a.ce and which no consciousness sees directly. This is necessary because without it science could not exist. In a word, psychologic time is given to us and must needs create scientific and physical time. There the difficulty begins, or rather the difficulties, for there are two.
Think of two consciousnesses, which are like two worlds impenetrable one to the other. By what right do we strive to put them into the same mold, to measure them by the same standard? Is it not as if one strove to measure length with a gram or weight with a meter? And besides, why do we speak of measuring? We know perhaps that some fact is anterior to some other, but not _by how much_ it is anterior.
Therefore two difficulties: (1) Can we transform psychologic time, which is qualitative, into a quant.i.tative time? (2) Can we reduce to one and the same measure facts which transpire in different worlds?
III
The first difficulty has long been noticed; it has been the subject of long discussions and one may say the question is settled. _We have not a direct intuition of the equality of two intervals of time._ The persons who believe they possess this intuition are dupes of an illusion. When I say, from noon to one the same time pa.s.ses as from two to three, what meaning has this affirmation?
The least reflection shows that by itself it has none at all. It will only have that which I choose to give it, by a definition which will certainly possess a certain degree of arbitrariness. Psychologists could have done without this definition; physicists and astronomers could not; let us see how they have managed.
To measure time they use the pendulum and they suppose by definition that all the beats of this pendulum are of equal duration. But this is only a first approximation; the temperature, the resistance of the air, the barometric pressure, make the pace of the pendulum vary. If we could escape these sources of error, we should obtain a much closer approximation, but it would still be only an approximation. New causes, hitherto neglected, electric, magnetic or others, would introduce minute perturbations.
In fact, the best chronometers must be corrected from time to time, and the corrections are made by the aid of astronomic observations; arrangements are made so that the sidereal clock marks the same hour when the same star pa.s.ses the meridian. In other words, it is the sidereal day, that is, the duration of the rotation of the earth, which is the constant unit of time. It is supposed, by a new definition subst.i.tuted for that based on the beats of the pendulum, that two complete rotations of the earth about its axis have the same duration.
However, the astronomers are still not content with this definition.
Many of them think that the tides act as a check on our globe, and that the rotation of the earth is becoming slower and slower. Thus would be explained the apparent acceleration of the motion of the moon, which would seem to be going more rapidly than theory permits because our watch, which is the earth, is going slow.
IV
All this is unimportant, one will say; doubtless our instruments of measurement are imperfect, but it suffices that we can conceive a perfect instrument. This ideal can not be reached, but it is enough to have conceived it and so to have put rigor into the definition of the unit of time.
The trouble is that there is no rigor in the definition. When we use the pendulum to measure time, what postulate do we implicitly admit? _It is that the duration of two identical phenomena is the same_; or, if you prefer, that the same causes take the same time to produce the same effects.
And at first blush, this is a good definition of the equality of two durations. But take care. Is it impossible that experiment may some day contradict our postulate?
Let me explain myself. I suppose that at a certain place in the world the phenomenon [alpha] happens, causing as consequence at the end of a certain time the effect [alpha]". At another place in the world very far away from the first, happens the phenomenon [beta], which causes as consequence the effect [beta]". The phenomena [alpha] and [beta] are simultaneous, as are also the effects [alpha]" and [beta]".
Later, the phenomenon [alpha] is reproduced under approximately the same conditions as before, and _simultaneously_ the phenomenon [beta] is also reproduced at a very distant place in the world and almost under the same circ.u.mstances. The effects [alpha]" and [beta]" also take place.
Let us suppose that the effect [alpha]" happens perceptibly before the effect [beta]".
If experience made us witness such a sight, our postulate would be contradicted. For experience would tell us that the first duration [alpha][alpha]" is equal to the first duration [beta][beta]" and that the second duration [alpha][alpha]" is less than the second duration [beta][beta]". On the other hand, our postulate would require that the two durations [alpha][alpha]" should be equal to each other, as likewise the two durations [beta][beta]". The equality and the inequality deduced from experience would be incompatible with the two equalities deduced from the postulate.
Now can we affirm that the hypotheses I have just made are absurd? They are in no wise contrary to the principle of contradiction. Doubtless they could not happen without the principle of sufficient reason seeming violated. But to justify a definition so fundamental I should prefer some other guarantee.
V
But that is not all. In physical reality one cause does not produce a given effect, but a mult.i.tude of distinct causes contribute to produce it, without our having any means of discriminating the part of each of them.
Physicists seek to make this distinction; but they make it only approximately, and, however they progress, they never will make it except approximately. It is approximately true that the motion of the pendulum is due solely to the earth"s attraction; but in all rigor every attraction, even of Sirius, acts on the pendulum.
Under these conditions, it is clear that the causes which have produced a certain effect will never be reproduced except approximately. Then we should modify our postulate and our definition. Instead of saying: "The same causes take the same time to produce the same effects," we should say: "Causes almost identical take almost the same time to produce almost the same effects."
Our definition therefore is no longer anything but approximate. Besides, as M. Calinon very justly remarks in a recent memoir:[7]