Page:The Foundations of Science (1913).djvu/337

 longer limited by anything; and, as I have written in 'Science and Hypothesis,' if a principle ceases to be fecund, experiment without contradicting it directly will nevertheless have condemned it.

Future Mathematical Physics.—This, therefore, is not what would have to be done; it would be necessary to rebuild anew. If we were reduced to this necessity, we could moreover console ourselves. It would not be necessary thence to conclude that science can weave only a Penelope's web, that it can raise only ephemeral structures, which it is soon forced to demolish from top to bottom with its own hands.

As I have said, we have already passed through a like crisis. I have shown you that in the second mathematical physics, that of the principles, we find traces of the first, that of central forces; it will be just the same if we must know a third. Just so with the animal that exuviates, that breaks its too narrow carapace and makes itself a fresh one; under the new envelope one will recognize the essential traits of the organism which have persisted.

We can not foresee in what way we are about to expand; perhaps it is the kinetic theory of gases which is about to undergo development and serve as model to the others. Then the facts which first appeared to us as simple thereafter would be merely resultants of a very great number of elementary facts which only the laws of chance would make cooperate for a common end. Physical law would then assume an entirely new aspect; it would no longer be solely a differential equation, it would take the character of a statistical law.

Perhaps, too, we shall have to construct an entirely new mechanics that we only succeed in catching a glimpse of, where, inertia increasing with the velocity, the velocity of light would become an impassable limit. The ordinary mechanics, more simple, would remain a first approximation, since it would be true for velocities not too great, so that the old dynamics would still be found under the new. We should not have to regret having believed in the principles, and even, since velocities too great for the old formulas would always be only exceptional, the surest way in practise would be still to act as if we continued to