For it would then have appeared that no difference of fact
could possibly ensue; and the quarrel was as unreal as if,
theorizing in primitive times about the raising of dough by yeast,
one party should have invoked a 'brownie,' while another insisted on
an 'elf' as the true cause of the phenomenon." [Footnote: 'Theorie
und Praxis,' Zeitsch. des Oesterreichischen Ingenieur u.
Architecten-Vereines, 1905, Nr. 4 u. 6. I find a still more radical
pragmatism than Ostwald's in an address by Professor W. S. Franklin:
"I think that the sickliest notion of physics, even if a student
gets it, is that it is 'the science of masses, molecules and the
ether.' And I think that the healthiest notion, even if a student
does not wholly get it, is that physics is the science of the ways
of taking hold of bodies and pushing them!" (Science, January 2,
1903.)]
It is astonishing to see how many philosophical disputes collapse
into insignificance the moment you subject them to this simple test
of tracing a concrete consequence. There can BE no difference any-
where that doesn't MAKE a difference elsewhere--no difference in
abstract truth that doesn't express itself in a difference in
concrete fact and in conduct consequent upon that fact, imposed on
somebody, somehow, somewhere and somewhen.
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