Page:Science and the Modern World.djvu/82

 direction. This difference is illustrated by contrasting Kepler and Newton. They both speculated as to the forces sustaining the planets in their orbits. Kepler looked for tangential forces pushing the planets along, whereas Newton looked for radial forces diverting the directions of the planets’ motions.

Instead of dwelling upon the mistake which Aristotle made, it is more profitable to emphasise the justification which he had for it, if we consider the obvious facts of our experience. All the motions which enter into our normal everyday experience cease unless they are evidently sustained from the outside. Apparently, therefore, the sound empiricist must devote his attention to this question of the sustenance of motion. We here hit upon one of the dangers of unimaginative empiricism. The seventeenth century exhibits another example of this same danger; and, of all people in the world, Newton fell into it. Huyghens had produced the wave theory of light. But this theory failed to account for the most obvious facts about light as in our ordinary experience, namely, that shadows cast by obstructing objects are defined by rectilinear rays. Accordingly, Newton rejected this theory and adopted the corpuscular theory which completely explained shadows. Since then both theories have had their periods of triumph. At the present moment the scientific world is seeking for a combination of the two. These examples illustrate the danger of refusing to entertain an idea because of its failure to explain one of the most obvious facts in the subject matter in question. If you have had your attention directed to the novelties in thought in your