Page:ScienceAndHypothesis1905.djvu/169

Rh convenient the fundamental conventions of geometry refer to bodies which have nothing in common with those that are studied by geometry. They refer to the properties of solid bodies and to the propagation of light in a straight line. These are mechanical, optical experiments. In no way can they be regarded as geometrical experiments. And even the probable reason why our geometry seems convenient to us is, that our bodies, our hands, and our limbs enjoy the properties of solid bodies. Our fundamental experiments are pre-eminently physiological experiments which refer, not to the space which is the object that geometry must study, but to our body—that is to say, to the instrument which we use for that study. On the other hand, the fundamental conventions of mechanics and the experiments which prove to us that they are convenient, certainly refer to the same objects or to analogous objects. Conventional and general principles are the natural and direct generalisations of experimental and particular principles. Let it not be said that I am thus tracing artificial frontiers between the sciences; that I am separating by a barrier geometry properly so called from the study of solid bodies. I might just as well raise a barrier between experimental mechanics and the conventional mechanics of general principles. Who does not see, in fact, that by separating these two sciences we mutilate both, and that what will remain of the