Editor’s Note

James Clerk Maxwell, probably the most perceptive physical scientist in the second half of the nineteenth century, was president of the physics section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1870. His presidential address, he explained, was stimulated by the previous year’s address by the mathematician J. J. Cayley. It dealt with the role of molecules in the explanation of physical phenomena. 中文

The president delivered the following address: — 中文

At several of the recent meetings of the British Association the varied and important business of the Mathematical and Physical Section has been introduced by an Address, the subject of which has been left to the selection of the president for the time being. The perplexing duty of choosing a subject has not, however, fallen to me. Professor Sylvester, the president of Section A at the Exeter meeting, gave us a noble vindication of pure mathematics by laying bare, as it were, the very working of the mathematical mind, and setting before us, not the array of symbols and brackets which form the armoury of the mathematician, or the dry results which are only the monuments of his conquests, but the mathematician himself, with all his human faculties directed by his professional sagacity to the pursuit, apprehension, and exhibition of that ideal harmony which he feels to be the root of all knowledge, the fountain of all pleasure, and the condition of all action. The mathematician has, above all things, an eye for symmetry; and Professor Sylvester has not only recognised the symmetry formed by the combination of his own subject with those of the former presidents, but has pointed out the duties of his successor in the following characteristic note:— 中文

“Mr. Spottiswoode favoured the Section, in his opening address, with a combined history of the progress of mathematics and physics; Dr. Tyndall’s address was virtually on the limits of physical philosophy; the one here in print,” says Professor Sylvester, “is an attempted faint adumbration of the nature of mathematical science in the abstract. What is wanting (like a fourth sphere resting on three others in contact) to build up the ideal pyramid is a discourse on the relation of the two branches (mathematics and physics) to, and their action and reaction upon, one another—a magnificent theme, with which it is to be hoped that some future president of Section A will crown the edifice, and make the tetralogy (symbolisable by A+A', A, A', AA') complete.” 中文

The theme thus distinctly laid down for his successor by our late President is indeed a magnificent one, far too magnificent for any efforts of mine to realise. I have endeavoured to follow Mr. Spottiswoode, as with far-reaching vision he distinguishes the systems of science into which phenomena, our knowledge of which is still in the nebulous stage, are growing. I have been carried by the penetrating insight and forcible expression of Dr. Tyndall into that sanctuary of minuteness and of power where molecules obey the laws of their existence, clash together in fierce collision, or grapple in yet more fierce embrace, building up in secret the forms of visible things. I have been guided by Professor Sylvester towards those serene height 中文

“Where never creeps a cloud, or moves a wind,
Nor ever falls the least white star of snow,
Nor ever lowest roll of thunder moans,
Nor sound of human sorrow mounts, to mar
Their sacred everlasting calm.” 中文

But who will lead me into that still more hidden and dimmer region where Thought weds Fact; where the mental operation of the mathematician and the physical action of the molecules are seen in their true relation? Does not the way to it pass through the very den of the metaphysician, strewed with the remains of former explorers, and abhorred by every man of science? It would indeed be a foolhardy adventure for me to take up the valuable time of the section by leading you into those speculations which require, as we know, thousands of years even to shape themselves intelligibly. 中文

But we are met as cultivators of mathematics and physics. In our daily work we are led up to questions the same in kind with those of metaphysics; and we approach them, not trusting to the native penetrating power of our own minds, but trained by a long-continued adjustment of our modes of thought to the facts of external nature. As mathematicians, we perform certain mental operations on the symbols of number or of quantity, and, by proceeding step by step from more simple to more complex operations, we are enabled to express the same thing in many different forms. The equivalence of these different forms, though a necessary consequence of self-evident axioms, is not always, to our minds, self-evident; but the mathematician, who, by long practice, has acquired a familiarity with many of these forms, and has become expert in the processes which lead from one to another, can often transform a perplexing expression into another which explains its meaning in more intelligible language. 中文

As students of physics, we observe phenomena under varied circumstances, and endeavour to deduce the laws of their relations. Every natural phenomenon is, to our minds, the result of an infinitely complex system of conditions. What we set ourselves to do is to unravel these conditions, and by viewing the phenomenon in a way which is in itself partial and imperfect, to piece out its features one by one, beginning with that which strikes us first, and thus gradually learning how to look at the whole phenomenon so as to obtain a continually greater degree of clearness and distinctness. In this process, the feature which presents itself most forcibly to the untrained inquirer may not be that which is considered most fundamental by the experienced man of science; for the success of any physical investigation depends on the judicious selection of what is to be observed as of primary importance, combined with a voluntary abstraction of the mind from those features which, however attractive they appear, we are not yet sufficiently advanced in science to investigate with profit. 中文

Intellectual processes of this kind have been going on since the first formation of language, and are going on still. No doubt the feature which strikes us first and most forcibly in any phenomenon, is the pleasure or the pain which accompanies it, and the agreeable or disagreeable results which follow after it. A theory of nature from this point of view is embodied in many of our words and phrases, and is by no means extinct even in our deliberate opinions. It was a great step in science when men became convinced that, in order to understand the nature of things, they must begin by asking, not whether a thing is good or bad, noxious or beneficial, but of what kind is it? and how much is there of it? Quality and quantity were then first recognised as the primary features to be observed in scientific inquiry. As science has been developed, the domain of quantity has everywhere encroached on that of quality, till the process of scientific inquiry seems to have become simply the measurement and registration of quantities, combined with a mathematical discussion of the numbers thus obtained. It is this scientific method of directing our attention to those features of phenomena which may be regarded as quantities which brings physical research under the influence of mathematical reasoning. In the work of the section we shall have abundant examples of the successful application of this method to the most recent conquests of science; but I wish at present to direct your attention to some of the reciprocal effects of the progress of science on those elementary conceptions which are sometimes thought to be beyond the reach of change. 中文

If the skill of the mathematician has enabled the experimentalist to see that the quantities which he has measured are connected by necessary relations, the discoveries of physics have revealed to the mathematician new forms of quantities which he could never have imagined for himself. Of the methods by which the mathematician may make his labours most useful to the student of nature, that which I think is at present most important is the systematic classification of quantities. The quantities which we study in mathematics and physics may be classified in two different ways. The student who wishes to master any particular science must make himself familiar with the various kinds of quantities which belong to that science. When he understands all the relations between these quantities, he regards them as forming a connected system, and he classes the whole system of quantities together as belonging to that particular science. This classification is the most natural from a physical point of view, and it is generally the first in order of time. But when the student has become acquainted with several different sciences, he finds that the mathematical processes and trains of reasoning in one science resemble those in another so much that his knowledge of the one science may be made a most useful help in the study of the other. When he examines into the reason of this, he finds that in the two sciences he has been dealing with systems of quantities, in which the mathematical forms of the relations of the quantities are the same in both systems, though the physical nature of the quantities may be utterly different. He is thus led to recognise a classification of quantities on a new principle, according to which the physical nature of the quantity is subordinated to its mathematical form. This is the point of view which is characteristic of the mathematician; but it stands second to the physical aspect in order of time, because the human mind, in order to conceive of different kinds of quantities, must have them presented to it by nature. I do not here refer to the fact that all quantities, as such, are subject to the rules of arithmetic and algebra, and are therefore capable of being submitted to those dry calculations which represent, to so many minds, their only idea of mathematics. The human mind is seldom satisfied, and is certainly never exercising its highest functions, when it is doing the work of a calculating machine. What the man of science, whether he be a mathematician or a physical inquirer, aims at is, to acquire and develop clear ideas of the things he deals with. For this purpose he is willing to enter on long calculations, and to be for a season a calculating machine, if he can only at last make his ideas clearer. But if he finds that clear ideas are not to be obtained by means of processes, the steps of which he is sure to forget before he has reached the conclusion, it is much better that he should turn to another method, and try to understand the subject by means of well-chosen illustrations derived from subjects with which he is more familiar. We all know how much more popular the illustrative method of exposition is found, than that in which bare processes of reasoning and calculation form the principal subject of discourse. Now a truly scientific illustration is a method to enable the mind to grasp some conception or law in one branch of science, by placing before it a conception or a law in a different branch of science, and directing the mind to lay hold of that mathematical form which is common to the corresponding ideas in the two sciences, leaving out of account for the present the difference between the physical nature of the real phenomena. The correctness of such an illustration depends on whether the two systems of ideas which are compared together are really analogous in form, or whether, in other words, the corresponding physical quantities really belong to the same mathematical class. When this condition is fulfilled, the illustration is not only convenient for teaching science in a pleasant and easy manner, but the recognition of the mathematical analogy between the two systems of ideas leads to a knowledge of both, more profound than could be obtained by studying each system separately. 中文

There are men who, when any relation or law, however complex, is put before them in a symbolical form, can grasp its full meaning as a relation among abstract quantities. Such men sometimes treat with indifference the further statement that quantities actually exist in nature which fulfil this relation. The mental image of the concrete reality seems rather to disturb than to assist their contemplations. But the great majority of mankind are utterly unable, without long training, to retain in their minds the unembodied symbols of the pure mathematician; so that if science is ever to become popular and yet remain scientific, it must be by a profound study and a copious application of those principles of truly scientific illustration which, as we have seen, depend on the mathematical classification of quantities. There are, as I have said, some minds which can go on contemplating with satisfaction pure quantities presented to the eye by symbols, and to the mind in a form which none but mathematicians can conceive. There are others who feel more enjoyment in following geometrical forms, which they draw on paper, or build up in the empty space before them. Others, again, are not content unless they can project their whole physical energies into the scene which they conjure up. They learn at what a rate the planets rush through space, and they experience a delightful feeling of exhilaration. They calculate the forces with which the heavenly bodies pull at one another, and they feel their own muscles straining with the effort. 中文

To such men impetus, energy, mass, are not mere abstract expressions of the results of scientific inquiry. They are words of power which stir their souls like the memories of childhood. For the sake of persons of these different types, scientific truths should be presented in different forms, and should be regarded as equally scientific, whether it appears in the robust form and the vivid colouring of a physical illustration, or in the tenuity and paleness of a symbolical expression. Time would fail me if I were to attempt to illustrate by examples the scientific value of the classification of quantities. I shall only mention the name of that important class of magnitudes having direction in space which Hamilton has called Vectors, and which form the subject-matter of the Calculus of Quaternions—a branch of mathematics which, when it shall have been thoroughly understood by men of the illustrative type, and clothed by them with physical imagery, will become, perhaps under some new name, a most powerful method of communicating truly scientific knowledge to persons apparently devoid of the calculating spirit. The mutual action and reaction between the different departments of human thought is so interesting to the student of scientific progress, that, at the risk of still further encroaching on the valuable time of the Section, I shall say a few words on a branch of science which not very long ago would have been considered rather a branch of metaphysics: I mean the atomic theory, or, as it is now called, the molecular theory of the constitution of bodies. Not many years ago, if we had been asked in what regions of physical science the advance of discovery was least apparent, we should have pointed to the hopelessly distant fixed stars on the one hand, and to the inscrutable delicacy of the texture of material bodies on the other. Indeed, if we are to regard Comte as in any degree representing the scientific opinion of his time, the research into what takes place beyond our own solar system seemed then to be exceedingly unpromising, if not altogether illusory. The opinion that the bodies which we see and handle, which we can set in motion or leave at rest, which we can break in pieces and destroy, are composed of smaller bodies which we cannot see or handle, which are always in motion, and which can neither be stopped nor broken in pieces, nor in any way destroyed or deprived of the least of their properties, was known by the name of the Atomic Theory. It was associated with the names of Democritus and Lucretius, and was commonly supposed to admit the existence only of atoms and void, to the exclusion of any other basis of things from the universe. 中文

In many physical reasonings and mathematical calculations we are accustomed to argue as if such substances as air, water, or metal, which appear to our senses uniform and continuous, were strictly and mathematically uniform and continuous. We know that we can divide a pint of water into many millions of portions, each of which is as fully endowed with all the properties of water as the whole pint was, and it seems only natural to conclude that we might go on subdividing the water for ever, just as we can never come to a limit in subdividing the space in which it is contained. We have heard how Faraday divided a grain of gold into an inconceivable number of separate particles, and we may see Dr. Tyndall produce from a mere suspicion of nitrite of butyle an immense cloud, the minute visible portion of which is still cloud, and therefore must contain many molecules of nitrite of butyle. But evidence from different and independent sources is now crowding in upon us which compels us to admit that if we could push the process of subdivision still further we should come to a limit, because each portion would then contain only one molecule, an individual body, one and indivisible, unalterable by any power in nature. Even in our ordinary experiments on very finely divided matter we find that the substance is beginning to lose the properties which it exhibits when in a large mass, and that effects depending on the individual action of molecules are beginning to become prominent. The study of these phenomena is at present the path which leads to the development of molecular science. That superficial tension of liquids which is called capillary attraction is one of these phenomena. Another important class of phenomena are those which are due to that motion of agitation by which the molecules of a liquid or gas are continually working their way from one place to another, and continually changing their course, like people hustled in a crowd. On this depends the rate of diffusion of gases and liquids through each other, to the study of which, as one of the keys of molecular science, that unwearied inquirer into nature’s secrets, the late Prof. Graham, devoted such arduous labour. 中文

The rate of electrolytic conduction is, according to Wiedemann’s theory, influenced by the same cause; and the conduction of heat in fluids depends probably on the same kind of action. In the case of gases, a molecular theory has been developed by Clausius and others, capable of mathematical treatment, and subjected to experimental investigation; and by this theory nearly every known mechanical property of gases has been explained on dynamical principles, so that the properties of individual gaseous molecules are in the fair way to become objects of scientific research. Now Sir William Thomson has shown by several independent lines of argument, drawn from phenomena so different in themselves as the electrification of metals by contact, the tension of soap-bubbles, and the friction of air, that in ordinary solids and liquids the average distance between contiguous molecules is less than the hundred-millionth, and greater than the two-thousand-millionth of a centimetre. This of course is an exceedingly rough estimate, for it is derived from measurements, some of which are still confessedly very rough; but if, at the present time, we can form even a rough plan for arriving at a result of this kind, we may hope that as our means of experimental inquiry become more accurate and more varied, our conception of a molecule will become more definite, so that we may be able at no distant period to estimate its weight. A theory which Sir W. Thomson has founded on Helmholtz’s splendid hydrodynamical theorems, seeks for the properties of molecules in the ring-vortices of a uniform, frictionless, incompressible fluid. Such whirling rings may be seen when an experienced smoker sends out a dexterous puff of smoke into the still air, but a more evanescent phenomenon it is difficult to conceive. This evanescence is owing to the viscosity of the air; but Helmholtz has shown that in a perfect fluid such a whirling ring, if once generated, would go on whirling for ever, would always consist of the very same portion of the fluid which was first set whirling, and could never be cut in two by any natural cause. The generation of a ring-vortex is of course equally beyond the power of natural causes, but once generated, it has the properties of individuality, permanence in quantity, and indestructibility. It is also the recipient of impulse and of energy, which is all we can affirm of matter; and these ring-vortices are capable of such varied connections, and knotted self-involutions, that the properties of differently knotted vortices must be as different as those of different kinds of molecules can be. 中文

If a theory of this kind should be found, after conquering the enormous mathematical difficulties of the subject, to represent in any degree the actual properties of molecules, it will stand in a very different scientific position from those theories of molecular action which are formed by investing the molecule with an arbitrary system of central forces invented expressly to account for the observed phenomena. In the vortex theory we have nothing arbitrary, no central forces or occult properties of any other kind. We have nothing but matter and motion, and when the vortex is once started its properties are all determined from the original impetus, and no further assumptions are possible. Even in the present undeveloped state of the theory, the contemplation of the individuality and indestructibility of a ring vortex in a perfect fluid cannot fail to disturb the commonly received opinion that a molecule, in order to be permanent, must be a very hard body. In fact one of the first conditions which a molecule must fulfil is, apparently, inconsistent with its being a single hard body. We know from those spectroscopic researches which have thrown so much light on different branches of science, that a molecule can be set into a state of internal vibration, in which it gives off to the surrounding medium light of definite refrangibility—light, that is, of definite wave-length and definite period of vibration. The fact that all the molecules, say of hydrogen, which we can procure for our experiments, when agitated by heat or by the passage of an electric spark, vibrate precisely in the same periodic time, or, to speak more accurately, that their vibrations are composed of a system of simple vibrations having always the same periods, is a very remarkable fact. I must leave it to others to describe the progress of that splendid series of spectroscopic discoveries by which the chemistry of the heavenly bodies has been brought within the range of human inquiry. I wish rather to direct your attention to the fact that not only has every molecule of terrestrial hydrogen the same system of periods of free vibration, but that the spectroscope examination of the light of the sun and stars shows that in regions the distance of which we can only feebly imagine there are molecules vibrating in as exact unison with the molecules of terrestrial hydrogen as two tuning forks tuned to correct pitch, or two watches regulated to solar time. Now this absolute equality in the magnitude of quantities, occurring in all parts of the universe, is worth our consideration. The dimensions of individual natural bodies are either quite indeterminate, as in the case of planets, stones, trees, &c., or they vary within moderate limit, as in the case of seeds, eggs, &c.; but, even in these cases, small quantitive differences are met with which do not interfere with the essential properties of the body. Even crystals, which are so definite in geometrical form, are variable with respect to their absolute dimensions. Among the works of man we sometimes find a certain degree of uniformity. There is a uniformity among the different bullets which are cast in the same mould, and the different copies of a book printed from the same type. If we examine the coins, or the weights and measures, of a civilised country, we find a uniformity, which is produced by careful adjustment to standards made and provided by the State. The degree of uniformity of these national standards is a measure of that spirit of justice in the nation which has enacted laws to regulate them and appointed officers to test them. This subject is one in which we, as a scientific body, take a warm interest, and you are all aware of the vast amount of scientific work which has been expended, and profitably expended, in providing weights and measures for commercial and scientific purposes. The earth has been measured as a basis for a permanent standard of length, and every property of metals has been investigated to guard against any alteration of the material standards when made. To weigh or measure anything with modern accuracy, requires a course of experiment and calculation in which almost every branch of physics and mathematics is brought into requisition. 中文

Yet, after all, the dimensions of our earth and its time of rotation, though, relatively to our present means of comparison, very permanent, are not so by any physical necessity. The earth might contract by cooling, or it might be enlarged by a layer of meteorites falling on it, or its rate of revolution might slowly slacken, and yet it would continue to be as much a planet as before. But a molecule, say of hydrogen, if either its mass or its time of vibration were to be altered in the least, would no longer be a molecule of hydrogen. If, then, we wish to obtain standards of length, time, and mass which shall be absolutely permanent, we must seek them not in the dimensions, or the motion, or the mass of our planet, but in the wave-length, the period of vibration, and the absolute mass of these imperishable and unalterable and perfectly similar molecules. When we find that here, and in the starry heavens, there are innumerable multitudes of little bodies of exactly the same mass, so many, and no more, to the grain, and vibrating in exactly the same time, so many times, and no more, in a second, and when we reflect that no power in nature can now alter in the least either the mass or the period of any one of them, we seem to have advanced along the path of natural knowledge to one of those points at which we must accept the guidance of that faith by which we understand that “that which is seen was not made of things which do appear.” One of the most remarkable results of the progress of molecular science is the light it has thrown on the nature of irreversible processes,—processes, that is, which always tend towards, and never away from, a certain limiting state. Thus if two gases be put into the same vessel they become mixed, and the mixture tends continually to become more uniform. If two unequally heated portions of the same gas are put into the vessel, something of the kind takes place, and the whole tends to become of the same temperature. If two unequally heated solid bodies be placed in contact, a continual approximation of both to an intermediate temperature takes place. In the case of the two gases, a separation may be effected by chemical means; but in the other two cases the former state of things cannot be restored by any natural process. In the case of the conduction or diffusion of heat the process is not only irreversible, but it involves the irreversible diminution of that part of the whole stock of thermal energy which is capable of being converted into mechanical work. This is Thomson’s theory of the irreversible dissipation of energy, and it is equivalent to the doctrine of Clausius concerning the growth of what he calls Entropy. The irreversible character of this process is strikingly embodied in Fourier’s theory of the conduction of heat, where the formulae themselves indicate a possible solution of all positive values of the time which continually tends to a uniform diffusion of heat. But if we attempt to ascend the stream of time by giving to its symbol continually diminishing values, we are led up to a state of things in which the formula has what is called a critical value; and if we inquire into the state of things the instant before, we find that the formula becomes absurd. We thus arrive at the conception of a state of things which cannot be conceived as the physical result of a previous state of things, and we find that this critical condition actually existed at an epoch not in the utmost depths of a past eternity, but separated from the present time by a finite interval. This idea of a beginning is one which the physical researches of recent times have brought home to us, more than any observer of the course of scientific thought in former times would have had reason to expect. But the mind of man is not like Fourier’s heated body, continually settling down into an ultimate state of quiet uniformity, the character of which we can already predict; it is rather like a tree shooting out branches which adapt themselves to the new aspects of the sky towards which they climb, and roots which contort themselves among the strange strata of the earth into which they delve. To us who breathe only the spirit of our own age, and know only the characteristics of contemporary thought, it is as impossible to predict the general tone of the science of the future as it is to anticipate the particular discoveries which it will make. Physical research is continually revealing to us new features of natural processes, and we are thus compelled to search for new forms of thought appropriate to these features. Hence the importance of a careful study of those relations between mathematics and physics which determine the conditions under which the ideas derived from one department of physics may be safely used in forming ideas to be employed in a new department. The figure of speech or of thought by which we transfer the language and ideas of a familiar science to one with which we are less acquainted may be called scientific metaphor. Thus the words velocity, momentum, force, &c., have acquired certain precise meanings in elementary dynamics. They are also employed in the dynamics of a connected system in a sense which, though perfectly analogous to the elementary sense, is wider and more general. These generalised forms of elementary ideas may be called metaphorical terms in the sense in which every abstract term is metaphorical. The characteristic of a truly scientific system of metaphors is that each term in its metaphorical use retains all the formal relations to the other terms of the system which it had in its original use. The method is then truly scientific, that is, not only a legitimate product of science, but capable of generating science in its turn. There are certain electrical phenomena, again, which are connected together by relations of the same form as those which connect dynamical phenomena. To apply to these the phrases of dynamics with proper distinctions and provisional reservations is an example of a metaphor of a bolder kind; but it is a legitimate metaphor if it conveys a true idea of the electrical relations to those who have been already trained in dynamics. Suppose, then, that we have successfully introduced certain ideas belonging to an elementary science by applying them metaphorically to some new class of phenomena. It becomes an important philosophical question to determine in what degree the applicability of the old ideas to the new subject may be taken as evidence that the new phenomena are physically similar to the old. The best instances for the determination of this question are those in which two different explanations have been given of the same thing. The most celebrated case of this kind is that of the corpuscular and the undulatory theories of light. Up to a certain point the phenomena of light are equally well explained by both; beyond this point one of them fails. To understand the true relation of these theories in that part of the field where they seem equally applicable we must look at them in the light which Hamilton has thrown upon them by his discovery that to every brachystochrone problem there corresponds a problem of free motion, involving different velocities and times, but resulting in the same geometrical path. Professor Tait has written a very interesting paper on this subject. According to a theory of electricity which is making great progress in Germany two electrical particles act on one another directly at a distance, but with a force which, according to Weber, depends on their relative velocity, and according to a theory hinted at by Gauss, and developed by Riemann, Lorenz, and Neumann, acts not instantaneously, but after a time depending on the distance. The power with which this theory, in the hands of these eminent men, explains every kind of electrical phenomena must be studied in order to be appreciated. Another theory of electricity which I prefer denies action at a distance and attributes electric action to tensions and pressures in an all-pervading medium, these stresses being the same in kind with those familiar to engineers, and the medium being identical with that in which light is supposed to be propagated. Both these theories are found to explain not only the phenomena by the aid of which they were originally constructed, but other phenomena which were not thought of, or perhaps not known at the time, and both have independently arrived at the same numerical result which gives the absolute velocity of light in terms of electrical quantities. That theories, apparently so fundamentally opposed, should have so large a field of truth common to both is a fact the philosophical importance of which we cannot fully appreciate till we have reached a scientific altitude from which the true relation between hypotheses so different can be seen. 中文

I shall only make one more remark on the relation between mathematics and physics. In themselves, one is an operation of the mind, the other is a dance of molecules. The molecules have laws of their own, some of which we select as most intelligible to us and most amenable to our calculation. We form a theory from these partial data, and we ascribe any deviation of the actual phenomena from this theory to disturbing causes. At the same time, we confess that what we call disturbing causes are simply those parts of the true circumstances which we do not know or have neglected, and we endeavour in future to take account of them. We thus acknowledge that the so-called disturbance is a mere figment of the mind, not a fact of nature, and that in natural action there is no disturbance. But this is not the only way in which the harmony of the material with the mental operation may be disturbed. The mind of the mathematician is subject to many disturbing causes, such as fatigue, loss of memory, and hasty conclusions; and it is found that from these and other causes mathematicians make mistakes. I am not prepared to deny that, to some mind of a higher order than ours, each of these errors might be traced to the regular operation of the laws of actual thinking; in fact we ourselves often do detect, not only errors of calculation, but the causes of these errors. This, however, by no means alters our conviction that they are errors, and that one process of thought is right and another process wrong. One of the most profound mathematicians and thinkers of our time, the late George Boole, when reflecting on the precise and almost mathematical character of the laws of right thinking as compared with the exceedingly perplexing, though perhaps equally determinate, laws of actual and fallible thinking, was led to another of those points of view from which science seems to look out into a region beyond her own domain. “We must admit,” he says, “that there exist laws”(of thought)“which even the rigour of their mathematical forms does not preserve from violation. We must ascribe to them an authority, the essence of which does not consist in power, a supremacy which the analogy of the inviolable order of the natural world in no way assists us to comprehend.” 中文

( 2 , 419-422; 1870) vKhWMTFPLOnAxwXwmj8OUdcaGrelt8a0+lFeAui9uYcmu0RrUmDcdrITd4JYmZoR