We seem
to have reverted in some sense from Copernicus to Ptolemy: except that the
centre is now occupied, not by the solid earth, but by _any_ geometrical
point chosen for the origin of calculation. Time, too, is not measured by
the sun or stars, but by _any_ "clock"--that is, by any recurrent rhythm
taken as a standard of comparison. It would seem that the existence and
energy of each chosen centre, as well as its career and encounters, hang
on the collateral existence of other centres of force, among which it must
wend its way: yet the only witness to their presence, and the only known
property of their substance, is their "radio-activity", or the physical
light which they shed. Light, in its physical being, is accordingly the
measure of all things in this new philosophy: and if we ask ourselves why
this element should have been preferred, the answer is not far to seek.
Light is the only medium through which very remote or very minute
particles of matter can be revealed to science. Whatever the nature of
things may be intrinsically, science must accordingly express the universe
in terms of light.
These reforms have come from within: they are triumphs of method. We make
an evident advance in logic, and in that parsimony which is dear to
philosophers (though not to nature), if we refuse to assign given terms
and relations to any prior medium, such as absolute time or space, which
cannot be given with them. Observable spaces and times, like the facts
observed in them, are given separately and in a desultory fashion.
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