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The process by which these and physical laws in general are established experimentally is this. Direct experiments render the law probable; these however are seldom of such minute accuracy as to prove the law exactly true: next on supposition of the truth of the law in question, the circumstances of more complex phenomena are computed and when the results of these computations are found in repeated instances of various kinds minutely to agree with observations, we have a very high degree of probability of the strict truth of the law. It is important to observe that of the laws of physical science we have only moral certainty, a certainty arising only from the improbability that an untrue principle should happen successfully to explain a great variety of phenomena. The first law of motion in Dynamics, for example, is made probable by experiments on bodies on the earth; it is proved by the agreement of the motion of the heavenly bodies, calculated on supposition of its truth, with the motions which they are observed to have. On such foundations all the laws of natural philosophy rest. [Excerpt from the book]

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9781985307759

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