Harmony in Science

ALTHOUGH a scientific cosmology in not easily comprehended by the layman interested in the interdependence of the instruments and the methods of science. Professor Whitehead constructs his metaphysical explanation more vividly than might be supposed. "Science and the Modern World," which consists of an amplification of the Lowell Lectures for 1925, is meant for those who are interested in the readjustment of the philosophy that "builds cathedrals before the workmen have moved a stone and destroys them before the elements have worn down their arches."

The author has been extremely apt in his choice of similes and metaphors to clarify the technical language of physics which necessarily permeate such a volume. The ordinary reader, therefore, begins to see the glimmer of the movements of mentality traced by Professor White-head from the seventeenth century to the present time, even though be falls to follow much of the reasoning that lies beneath unfamiliar terminology. And although it requires a deep study, despite the fact that the work is for beginners, to to grasp the full meaning, nevertheless the treatment of scientific ideas in scientific terms is more to be commended than a simple outline couched in ordinary language which would inevitably sacrifice the deepness of the reason.

Because it is a new cosmology interpreting philosophy and science in interreaction it is impossible to debate the truth of the ideas. The very interrelation of scientific discoveries and scientific plan precludes such an argument. It only remains to consider the usefulness of the work.

Those who follow the progress of modern invention eagerly will find here what architectural problems lie behind discovery and scientific progress. These problems are considered in the light of the mental rather than the historical developments of the last three centuries. The modification of the old concepts of an order in nature, matter, space, time, continuity, interaction, induction, and atomism by the newer ones of the molecular theory, the quantum theory and relativity to form a new, harmonious system, is, in the last analysis, the main theme of this cosmology.