Page:An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge.djvu/8

vi PREFACE labours of Larmor, Lorentz, Einstein, and Minkovski have opened a new world of thought as to the relations of space and time to the ultimate data of perceptual knowledge. The present work is largely concerned with providing a physical basis for the more modern views which have thus emerged. The whole investigation is based on the principle that the scientific concepts of space and time are the first outcome of the simplest generalisations from experience, and that they are not to be looked for at the tail end of a welter of differential equations. This position does not mean that Einstein's recent theory of general relativity and of gravitation is to be rejected. The divergence is purely a question of interpretation. Our time and space measurements may in practice result in elaborate combinations of the primary methods of measurement which are explained in this work. For example, the theory of gravitational matter may involve the theory of &lsquo;vagrant solids&rsquo; which is pointed out as a subject for investigation in article 39, but not developed. It has certainly resulted from Einstein's investigations that a modification of the gravitational law, of an order of magnitude which is $$v^2$$/$$c^2$$ of the main effect [$$v$$ being the velocity of the matter and $$c$$ that of light], will account for the more striking outstanding difficulties otherwise unexplained by the law of gravitation. This is a remarkable discovery for which the utmost credit is due to the author. Now that the fact is known, it is easy to see that it is the sort of modification which on the simple electromagnetic theory of relativity is likely to be required for this law. I have however been anxious to disentangle the consideration of the main positions of this enquiry from theories designed to explain special laws of nature.