e earth is round we state a truth
which every one is willing to receive as final. If without denying that
the earth was round, one should criticise the statement on the ground
that it was not necessarily round but might be of some other form, we
should simply smile at this use of language. But when we take a more
general statement and assert that the laws of nature are inexorable,
and that all phenomena, so far as we can show, occur in obedience to
their requirements, we are met with a sort of criticism with which all
of us are familiar, but which I am unable adequately to describe. No
one denies that as a matter of fact, and as far as his experience
extends, these laws do appear to be inexorable. I have never heard of
any one professing, during the present generation, to describe a
natural phenomenon, with the avowed belief that it was not a product of
natural law; yet we constantly hear the scientific view criticised on
the ground that events MAY occur without being subject to natural law.
The word "may," in this connection, is one to which we can attach no
meaning expressive of a sensuous relation.

The analogous conflict between the scientific use of language and the
use made by some philosophers is found in connection with the idea of
causation. Fundamentally the word cause is used in scientific language
in the same sense as in the language of common life. When we discuss
with our neighbors the cause of a fit of illness, of a fire, or of cold
weather, not the slightest ambiguity attaches to the use of the word,
because whatever meaning may be given to it is founded only on an
accurate analysis of the ideas involved in it from daily use. No
philosopher objects to the common meaning of the word, yet we
frequently find men of eminence in the intellectual world who will not
tolerate the scientific man in using the word in this way. In every
explanation which he can give to its use they detect ambiguity. They
insist that in any proper use of the term the idea of power must be
connoted. But what meaning is here attached to the word power, and how
shall we first reduce it to a sensible form, and then apply its meaning
to the operations of nature? Whether this can be done, I do not
inquire. All I maintain is that if we wish to do it, we must pass
without the domain of scientific statement.

Perhaps the greatest advantage in the use of symbolic and other
mathematical language in scientific investigation is that it cannot