Abstract
THE present position of physical science is that a large body of observations have been correlated by the two processes of abstraction and hypothesis. Abstraction has led us virtually to a contorted space-time, and hypothesis to a scheme of concepts unpicturable by the imagination. Both space-time and the scheme of concepts, however, by obeying prescribed rules, reproduce the data of observation, so that out of pure conceptions, having only a rational meaning, we can evolve, as it were, a very large part of the world of experience. This is the great achievement of modern physical science. The question that next arises is: What is the relation, in the category of reality, however we may define that word, of the world of experience to the connecting world of thought?
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DINGLE, H. The Nature and Scope of Physical Science. II. Nature 127, 526–527 (1931). https://doi.org/10.1038/127526a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/127526a0