Page:The Function of Reason.pdf/58

 of hundreds of miles listen to the music. Is it credible to believe that the only principle involved is the mere description of the original particular observations?

We are told, however, that we have misconstrued the intermediate step by terming it “a speculative description of spatio-temporal occurrences.” The proper way of expressing the procedure of science is to say that the intermediate step is simply the production of a mathematical formula, and that by the aid of this formula the experiences of the people with receiving sets are predicted. But what is the formula doing? It may have some relevance to the sequence of experiences in some scientist’s mind, expressing the transition from his original visual experiences to his final enjoyment of an excellent band. The doctrine seems unlikely and far-fetched. By a stretch of the mind, I can imagine it. But we have got to account for the experiences of the unlearned multitude with radio sets. They are ignorant of the original experiments, ignorant of the mathematical formulae, ignorant of the whereabouts of the band and of the radio laboratory, and ignorant of the inside mechanism both of the generating station and of their own radio sets. What on earth has the mere mathematical formula to do with the experiences of this multitude of listeners, endowed with this comprehensive ignorance and taking their rest after good dinners and a hard day’s work?

Is the formula a magical incantation? We can parallel this modern doctrine of the mere