Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 5.djvu/159

 "axioms," says of them that due familiarity with physical phenomena gives the power of seeing "at once" "their necessary truth." These last words, which express his conception of an axiom, express also the usual conception. An axiom is defined as a "self-evident truth," or a truth that is seen at once; and the definition otherwise worded is—a "truth so evident at first sight that no process of reasoning or demonstration can make it plainer." Now, I contend that Prof. Tait, by thus committing himself to a definition of physical axioms identical with that which is given of mathematical axioms tacitly admits that they have the same a priori character; and I further contend that no such nature as that which he describes physical axioms to have, can be acquired by experiment or observation during the life of an individual. Axioms, if defined as truths of which the necessity is at once seen, are thereby defined as truths of which the negation is inconceivable; and the familiar contrast between them and the truths established by individual experiences is, that these last never become such that their negations are inconceivable, however multitudinous the experiences may be. Thousands of times has the sportsman heard the report that follows the flash from his gun, but still he can imagine the flash as occurring silently; and countless daily experiments on the burning of coal leave him able to conceive coal as remaining in the fire without ignition. So that the "convictions drawn from observation and experiment" during a single life can never acquire that character which Prof. Tait admits physical axioms to have: in other words, physical axioms cannot be derived from personal observation and experiment. Thus, otherwise applying the reviewer's words, I "doubt whether we should have heard aught of this quotation" to which he calls my attention, had he studied the matter more closely; and he "leaves us indebted to" him "for the discovery of" a passage which serves to make clearer the untenability of the doctrine he so dogmatically affirms.

I turn now to what the reviewer says concerning the special arguments I used to show that the first law of motion cannot be proved experimentally. After a bare enunciation of my positions, he says:

Probably the reviewer expects his readers to conclude that he could easily dispose of the statements referred to if he tried. Among scientific men, however, this cavalier passing over of my arguments will perhaps be ascribed to another cause. I will give him my reason for saying this. Those arguments, read in proof by one of the most eminent physicists, and by a specially-honored mathematician, had their entire concurrence; and I have since had from another