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ogy, where atomistic conceptions may be traced through Mendelianism down to the latest speculations of heredity. In this connection, the opinion of Mr. J. M. Keynes expressed at the conclusion of his Treatise on Probability is worth quoting: that "the practical usefulness of those modes of inference on the validity of which.. modern science depends, can only exist-if the universe of phenomena does in fact present those peculiar characteristics of atomism. . which appear more and more clearly as the ultimate results to which material science is tending."2 Indeed, if atomism be taken in its widest sense as signifying no more than the assumption that nature is reducible to units of magnitude, it seems not too much to say that such atomism is everywhere a postulate of scientific method in so far as science attempts to derive equations, calculations, probabilities,-in short, mathematical results-from the study of nature. Only by assuming something like the atomistic hypothesis, it would seem, can we associate physical states with reckonable numbers and treat them by definite quantitative methods.

In conclusion, the opinion may be reaffirmed that science is not, as Dr. Carr suggests, embracing subjectivism and monadic conceptions, but is on the contrary steadily advancing in the objectivity of its methods and ideal. The important axiom of method is constantly more clearly realized that experimental results are trustworthy in proportion as anthropomorphic elements, the 'personal equation,' and subjectivity (in so far as it defies objective control) can be eliminated. The physicist, the chemist, the zoologist, is, moreover, conscious of studying an object that is no mere extrapolation of his own point of view or projection of the relations in his sensations, but that has on the contrary its basis in universal, necessary conditions over which the private individual mind as such has no determining control.

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY

MARIE COLLINS SWABEY.

12 Keynes, A Treatise on Probability, p. 427.

SCIENCE AND SUBJECTIVITY

By the courtesy of the Editor, I have been allowed to see Mrs. Swabey's interesting article and invited to reply briefly to her criticism of my interpretation of the principle of relativity as being in effect the abandonment of belief in an objective standard and the acceptance by science of subjectivity as its basic principle. I am very pleased to respond, more especially as I find nothing to object to in my critic's presentation of my view. I would like, however, to make my general position clear on the main point, and, that done, to take up the writer's challenge on two positions clearly and definitely indicated.

I am quite aware that to charge science with subjectivity is to most scientific workers engaged in physical research equivalent to charging science with being unscientific. Certainly to suggest that physicists in their minds are revolutionizing science by changing its principle from the study of nature in its objectivity to the study of mind in its subjectivity would be very like a suggestion of treachery. What I have described as the modern scientific revolution is something very different. It is a complete change in the meaning of objectivity which has introduced itself into science without any conscious purpose or directing influence on the part of those who are engaged in scientific experimental or theoretical work. This seems to me extraordinarily significant, and to understand its full significance we have to go back to the origin and development of the modern scientific conception of the physical universe. When we do so we see, not that the physicists and mathematicians today are reintroducing the obsolete concepts of the old metaphysicians, but that they are finding themselves confronted with precisely the same difficulties as those which Leibniz, for example, urged first against the mechanistic principles of Descartes and later against the abstract generalizations of Newton. In a curious way Newton's "Physics beware metaphysics" has turned against his own work, not in the sense that it reveals deficiency or incompleteness in the superstructure but that it concealed from him unsoundness in the foundations. The

general theory of relativity has revolutionized Newton's cosmology precisely in the points which Leibniz indicated as its metaphysical weakness. What has had to be abandoned in modern science is the ideal, so strenuously insisted on throughout the nineteenth century, of an abstract objectivity, the assumption of Nature open to the inspection of a contemplating mind and completely free from an entangling alliance with it. The new idea is not merely a recognition that objectivity has a relative and not an absolute meaning and that something of the subject characterizes all scientific knowledge; it is that the reality of the universe has to be conceived on an entirely new metaphysical principle and one which does not dichotomize into subjective and objective factors.

On two points Mrs. Swabey seems to challenge my interpretation of the principle of relativity: viz., my assertion that the principle has negatived the possibility of a standard of magnitudes, and my refusal to see in the laws of nature which hold good for observers in all systems of reference moving relatively to one another an objectivity which "cancels out" the subjectivity of their individual standpoints.

In regard to the first point, I will not ask that the standard of magnitudes if it exist shall be produced, for I suppose it will be generally admitted that it cannot even be indicated. What I imagine, however, is claimed by those who demur to my conclusion, is that the ratio between a small scale phenomenon and a large scale phenomenon, say between an atom and a solar system, is constant and absolute for all systems. This is no doubt true, but by no ingenuity, by no mathematical device that I can conceive possible, can this ratio provide a standard by which magnitudes are determined absolutely. Great and small keep a constant meaning for all observers, not because something they can refer to is absolutely great and something they can compare with it is absolutely small, but because in passing from one system of reference to another the observer finds that all magnitudes conform to the condition of his coordination, the condition that the system to which he is attached is at rest. If we accept the principle of relativity there is no way in which we can compare the magnitudes of different systems of reference with one another by passing from one to another and making observations from within. I do not think there is a real disagreement on this point among philosophers who accept the principle of relativity.

In regard to the second challenge, it is true that the laws of nature assume an invariable form for observers in all systems of reference,

whatever be the movement relatively to one another of the systems. In a way it may be correct to describe this as cancelling out the differences in the observations of individual observers from different standpoints. Cancelling out however does not imply that the differences are abolished. It is in this fact, namely that they are not abolished, that the necessity of metaphysical construction is manifest. The laws of nature are uniform for all observers in all systems of reference, not because there is real identity but because there is a possibility of ideal relations between the observers in the different systems. It is the ideal relation and not the real relation between two observers which enables each to observe for himself under his own conditions and compare with another observer observing for himself under his own conditions. The result of the comparison is as though the two had changed places while in reality each has remained in his own place. For my own part I can only say that I can rationalize the physical universe of relativity on a monadic principle and I cannot rationalize it on any other.

One last remark I would like to make in reference to the quotation from Mr. Whitehead's Science and the Modern World: "it is the observer's body we want, and not his mind." I know that many philosophers and in particular Mr. Whitehead, disagree with my interpretation of the principle of relativity, and generally the nature of their objections is clear to me. In regard, however, to the passage quoted I must confess to complete failure to understand what it means, and as Mrs. Swabey quotes it approvingly I wish she had gone on to interpret it. So far as I understand the principle of relativity, it is that, in passing from one system of reference to another, all the observations of phenomena adapt themselves to the condition of coördination that for the observer the system to which he is attached is at rest. How it can be consistent with this to suppose that the observer's body is in some way privileged and escapes this necessity I cannot understand.

UNIVERSITY Of Southern California

H. WILDON Carr.

The publisher of the Proceedings of the Sixth International Congress of Philosophy is Longmans, Green & Co., 55 Fifth Avenue, New York City and 39 Paternoster Road, London. The price of the volume in paper covers is $5.00; in cloth binding, $6.00. Every active member will receive a copy without cost as soon as the book is off the press. Associate members are entitled to purchase one copy at the special price of $3.00. It is planned to publish the book in the late spring of 1927. Orders should be sent to the publisher, at New York or London, and not to the Editor of the Proceedings. It is requested that orders be sent in advance as far as possible to facilitate an accurate estimate of the edition needed.

EDWARD S. BRIGHTMAN, Editor.

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