Page:ScienceAndHypothesis1905.djvu/238

 good (and I knew whether this is so or not before beginning the observations), I shall not draw the curve far from the points which represent the rough measurements. If they are inferior, I may draw it a little farther from the points, so that I may get a less sinuous curve; much will be sacrificed to regularity.

Why, then, do I draw a curve without sinuosities? Because I consider à priori a law represented by a continuous function (or function the derivatives of which to a high order are small), as more probable than a law not satisfying those conditions. But for this conviction the problem would have no meaning; interpolation would be impossible; no law could be deduced from a finite number of observations; science would cease to exist.

Fifty years ago physicists considered, other things being equal, a simple law as more probable than a complicated law. This principle was even invoked in favour of Mariotte's law as against that of Regnault. But this belief is now repudiated; and yet, how many times are we compelled to act as though we still held it! However that may be, what remains of this tendency is the belief in continuity, and as we have just seen, if the belief in continuity were to disappear, experimental science would become impossible.

VI. The Theory of Errors.—We are thus brought to consider the theory of errors which is directly