'Radium' came the other day as part of the day's
content, and seemed for a moment to contradict our ideas of the
whole order of nature, that order having come to be identified with
what is called the conservation of energy. The mere sight of radium
paying heat away indefinitely out of its own pocket seemed to
violate that conservation. What to think? If the radiations from it
were nothing but an escape of unsuspected 'potential' energy, pre-
existent inside of the atoms, the principle of conservation would be
saved. The discovery of 'helium' as the radiation's outcome, opened
a way to this belief. So Ramsay's view is generally held to be true,
because, altho it extends our old ideas of energy, it causes a
minimum of alteration in their nature.
I need not multiply instances. A new opinion counts as 'true' just
in proportion as it gratifies the individual's desire to assimilate
the novel in his experience to his beliefs in stock. It must both
lean on old truth and grasp new fact; and its success (as I said a
moment ago) in doing this, is a matter for the individual's
appreciation. When old truth grows, then, by new truth's addition,
it is for subjective reasons. We are in the process and obey the
reasons.
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