The Foundations of Science: Science and Hypothesis, The Value of Science Science and Method Part 33

One of the circ.u.mstances of any phenomenon is the velocity of the earth's rotation; if this velocity of rotation varies, it const.i.tutes in the reproduction of this phenomenon a circ.u.mstance which no longer remains the same. But to suppose this velocity of rotation constant is to suppose that we know how to measure time.

[7] _Etude sur les diverses grandeurs_, Paris, Gauthier-Villars, 1897.

Our definition is therefore not yet satisfactory; it is certainly not that which the astronomers of whom I spoke above implicitly adopt, when they affirm that the terrestrial rotation is slowing down.

What meaning according to them has this affirmation? We can only understand it by a.n.a.lyzing the proofs they give of their proposition.

They say first that the friction of the tides producing heat must destroy _vis viva_. They invoke therefore the principle of _vis viva_, or of the conservation of energy.

They say next that the secular acceleration of the moon, calculated according to Newton's law, would be less than that deduced from observations unless the correction relative to the slowing down of the terrestrial rotation were made. They invoke therefore Newton's law. In other words, they define duration in the following way: time should be so defined that Newton's law and that of _vis viva_ may be verified.

Newton's law is an experimental truth; as such it is only approximate, which shows that we still have only a definition by approximation.

If now it be supposed that another way of measuring time is adopted, the experiments on which Newton's law is founded would none the less have the same meaning. Only the enunciation of the law would be different, because it would be translated into another language; it would evidently be much less simple. So that the definition implicitly adopted by the astronomers may be summed up thus: Time should be so defined that the equations of mechanics may be as simple as possible. In other words, there is not one way of measuring time more true than another; that which is generally adopted is only more _convenient_. Of two watches, we have no right to say that the one goes true, the other wrong; we can only say that it is advantageous to conform to the indications of the first.

The difficulty which has just occupied us has been, as I have said, often pointed out; among the most recent works in which it is considered, I may mention, besides M. Calinon's little book, the treatise on mechanics of Andrade.

VI

The second difficulty has up to the present attracted much less attention; yet it is altogether a.n.a.logous to the preceding; and even, logically, I should have spoken of it first.

Two psychological phenomena happen in two different consciousnesses; when I say they are simultaneous, what do I mean? When I say that a physical phenomenon, which happens outside of every consciousness, is before or after a psychological phenomenon, what do I mean?

In 1572, Tycho Brahe noticed in the heavens a new star. An immense conflagration had happened in some far distant heavenly body; but it had happened long before; at least two hundred years were necessary for the light from that star to reach our earth. This conflagration therefore happened before the discovery of America. Well, when I say that; when, considering this gigantic phenomenon, which perhaps had no witness, since the satellites of that star were perhaps uninhabited, I say this phenomenon is anterior to the formation of the visual image of the isle of Espanola in the consciousness of Christopher Columbus, what do I mean?

A little reflection is sufficient to understand that all these affirmations have by themselves no meaning. They can have one only as the outcome of a convention.

VII

We should first ask ourselves how one could have had the idea of putting into the same frame so many worlds impenetrable to one another. We should like to represent to ourselves the external universe, and only by so doing could we feel that we understood it. We know we never can attain this representation: our weakness is too great. But at least we desire the ability to conceive an infinite intelligence for which this representation could be possible, a sort of great consciousness which should see all, and which should cla.s.sify all _in its time_, as we cla.s.sify, _in our time_, the little we see.

This hypothesis is indeed crude and incomplete, because this supreme intelligence would be only a demiG.o.d; infinite in one sense, it would be limited in another, since it would have only an imperfect recollection of the past; and it could have no other, since otherwise all recollections would be equally present to it and for it there would be no time. And yet when we speak of time, for all which happens outside of us, do we not unconsciously adopt this hypothesis; do we not put ourselves in the place of this imperfect G.o.d; and do not even the atheists put themselves in the place where G.o.d would be if he existed?

What I have just said shows us, perhaps, why we have tried to put all physical phenomena into the same frame. But that can not pa.s.s for a definition of simultaneity, since this hypothetical intelligence, even if it existed, would be for us impenetrable. It is therefore necessary to seek something else.

VIII

The ordinary definitions which are proper for psychologic time would suffice us no more. Two simultaneous psychologic facts are so closely bound together that a.n.a.lysis can not separate without mutilating them.

Is it the same with two physical facts? Is not my present nearer my past of yesterday than the present of Sirius?

It has also been said that two facts should be regarded as simultaneous when the order of their succession may be inverted at will. It is evident that this definition would not suit two physical facts which happen far from one another, and that, in what concerns them, we no longer even understand what this reversibility would be; besides, succession itself must first be defined.

IX

Let us then seek to give an account of what is understood by simultaneity or antecedence, and for this let us a.n.a.lyze some examples.

I write a letter; it is afterward read by the friend to whom I have addressed it. There are two facts which have had for their theater two different consciousnesses. In writing this letter I have had the visual image of it, and my friend has had in his turn this same visual image in reading the letter. Though these two facts happen in impenetrable worlds, I do not hesitate to regard the first as anterior to the second, because I believe it is its cause.

I hear thunder, and I conclude there has been an electric discharge; I do not hesitate to consider the physical phenomenon as anterior to the auditory image perceived in my consciousness, because I believe it is its cause.

Behold then the rule we follow, and the only one we can follow: when a phenomenon appears to us as the cause of another, we regard it as anterior. It is therefore by cause that we define time; but most often, when two facts appear to us bound by a constant relation, how do we recognize which is the cause and which the effect? We a.s.sume that the anterior fact, the antecedent, is the cause of the other, of the consequent. It is then by time that we define cause. How save ourselves from this _pet.i.tio principii_?

We say now _post hoc, ergo propter hoc_; now _propter hoc, ergo post hoc_; shall we escape from this vicious circle?

X

Let us see, not how we succeed in escaping, for we do not completely succeed, but how we try to escape.

I execute a voluntary act _A_ and I feel afterward a sensation _D_, which I regard as a consequence of the act _A_; on the other hand, for whatever reason, I infer that this consequence is not immediate, but that outside my consciousness two facts _B_ and _C_, which I have not witnessed, have happened, and in such a way that _B_ is the effect of _A_, that _C_ is the effect of _B_, and _D_ of _C_.

But why? If I think I have reason to regard the four facts _A_, _B_, _C_, _D_, as bound to one another by a causal connection, why range them in the causal order _A B C D_, and at the same time in the chronologic order _A B C D_, rather than in any other order?

I clearly see that in the act _A_ I have the feeling of having been active, while in undergoing the sensation _D_ I have that of having been pa.s.sive. This is why I regard _A_ as the initial cause and _D_ as the ultimate effect; this is why I put _A_ at the beginning of the chain and _D_ at the end; but why put _B_ before _C_ rather than _C_ before _B_?

If this question is put, the reply ordinarily is: we know that it is _B_ which is the cause of _C_ because we always see _B_ happen before _C_.

These two phenomena, when witnessed, happen in a certain order; when a.n.a.logous phenomena happen without witness, there is no reason to invert this order.

Doubtless, but take care; we never know directly the physical phenomena _B_ and _C_. What we know are sensations _B'_ and _C'_ produced respectively by _B_ and _C_. Our consciousness tells us immediately that _B'_ precedes _C'_ and we suppose that _B_ and _C_ succeed one another in the same order.

This rule appears in fact very natural, and yet we are often led to depart from it. We hear the sound of the thunder only some seconds after the electric discharge of the cloud. Of two flashes of lightning, the one distant, the other near, can not the first be anterior to the second, even though the sound of the second comes to us before that of the first?

XI

Another difficulty; have we really the right to speak of the cause of a phenomenon? If all the parts of the universe are interchained in a certain measure, any one phenomenon will not be the effect of a single cause, but the resultant of causes infinitely numerous; it is, one often says, the consequence of the state of the universe a moment before. How enunciate rules applicable to circ.u.mstances so complex? And yet it is only thus that these rules can be general and rigorous.

Not to lose ourselves in this infinite complexity, let us make a simpler hypothesis. Consider three stars, for example, the sun, Jupiter and Saturn; but, for greater simplicity, regard them as reduced to material points and isolated from the rest of the world. The positions and the velocities of three bodies at a given instant suffice to determine their positions and velocities at the following instant, and consequently at any instant. Their positions at the instant t determine their positions at the instant _t_ + _h_ as well as their positions at the instant _t_ - _h_.

Even more; the position of Jupiter at the instant _t_, together with that of Saturn at the instant _t_ + _a_, determines the position of Jupiter at any instant and that of Saturn at any instant.

The aggregate of positions occupied by Jupiter at the instant _t_ + _e_ and Saturn at the instant _t_ + _a_ + _e_ is bound to the aggregate of positions occupied by Jupiter at the instant _t_ and Saturn at the instant _t_ + _a_, by laws as precise as that of Newton, though more complicated. Then why not regard one of these aggregates as the cause of the other, which would lead to considering as simultaneous the instant _t_ of Jupiter and the instant _t_ + _a_ of Saturn?

In answer there can only be reasons, very strong, it is true, of convenience and simplicity.

XII

But let us pa.s.s to examples less artificial; to understand the definition implicitly supposed by the savants, let us watch them at work and look for the rules by which they investigate simultaneity.

I will take two simple examples, the measurement of the velocity of light and the determination of longitude.

When an astronomer tells me that some stellar phenomenon, which his telescope reveals to him at this moment, happened, nevertheless, fifty years ago, I seek his meaning, and to that end I shall ask him first how he knows it, that is, how he has measured the velocity of light.

He has begun by _supposing_ that light has a constant velocity, and in particular that its velocity is the same in all directions. That is a postulate without which no measurement of this velocity could be attempted. This postulate could never be verified directly by experiment; it might be contradicted by it if the results of different measurements were not concordant. We should think ourselves fortunate that this contradiction has not happened and that the slight discordances which may happen can be readily explained.

The postulate, at all events, resembling the principle of sufficient reason, has been accepted by everybody; what I wish to emphasize is that it furnishes us with a new rule for the investigation of simultaneity, entirely different from that which we have enunciated above.