Читать книгу A Theory of the Mechanism of Survival: The Fourth Dimension and Its Applications онлайн

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The most we can say is that certain hypotheses have stood the test in such a very large number of cases without a single failure that there is a very high degree of probability that they are really true.

The hypothesis that the Chemical "Atom" was the ultimate and indivisible unit of matter was a perfectly valid one in the light of the facts that had been observed at the time of its formation and of its apparent proof by Lavoisier and others.

It is only the facts which have been elicited by the study of Ionisation, of Radio-active substances and similar phenomena that have proved it to be untenable and necessitated the substitution of the electronic theory.

Again the Corpuscular theory of light affords a very pertinent illustration of the point I wish to make.

A number of facts regarding the phenomena of light were observed and classified and it was found that these could be explained by the hypothesis that light consisted of a stream of very minute particles moving at very high speed which impinged upon the eye and thus gave rise to the sensations observed. Up to a point this explanation was perfectly satisfactory and for a long time it held the field, partly because of the great prestige of Newton to whom much of its development was due and partly because it continued to explain subsequently observed facts without much straining.