the facts are simple because simplicity is the
goal of our quest. The guiding motto in the life of every natural
philosopher should be, Seek simplicity and distrust it.

CHAPTER VIII

SUMMARY

There is a general agreement that Einstein's investigations have one
fundamental merit irrespective of any criticisms which we may feel
inclined to pass on them. They have made us think. But when we have
admitted so far, we are most of us faced with a distressing perplexity.
What is it that we ought to think about? The purport of my lecture this
afternoon will be to meet this difficulty and, so far as I am able, to
set in a clear light the changes in the background of our scientific
thought which are necessitated by any acceptance, however qualified, of
Einstein's main positions. I remember that I am lecturing to the members
of a chemical society who are not for the most part versed in advanced
mathematics. The first point that I would urge upon you is that what
immediately concerns you is not so much the detailed deductions of the
new theory as this general change in the background of scientific
conceptions which will follow from its acceptance. Of course, the
detailed deductions are important, because unless our colleagues the
astronomers and the physicists find these predictions to be verified we
can neglect the theory altogether. But we may now take it as granted
that in many striking particulars these deductions have been found to be
in agreement with observation. Accordingly the theory has to be taken
seriously and we are anxious to know what will be the consequences of
its final acceptance. Furthermore during the last few weeks the
scientific journals and the lay press have been filled with articles as
to the nature of the crucial experiments which have been made and as to
some of the more striking expressions of the outcome of the new theory.
'Space caught bending' appeared on the news-sheet of a well-known
evening paper. This rendering is a terse but not inapt translation of
Einstein's own way of interpreting his results. I should say at once
that I am a heretic as to this explanation and that I shall expound to
you another explanation based upon some work of my own, an explanation
which seems to me to be more in accordance with our scientific ideas and
with the whole body of facts which have to be explained. We have to
remember that a new theory must take account of the old well-attested
facts of science just