PIERRE DUHEM AS PROPAGANDIST 13

that “There is ... no logical way leading to the establishment of a
theory but only groping constructive attempts controlled by care-
ful consideration of factual knowledge.”** “A theory as non-
commonsensical as Einstein’s” has to be partly explained in terms
of Einstein’s “taste for ‘inner perfection’ in science,” which does not
proceed according to Duhemian logic but according to “an aesthetic
which logicians of science have not yet reduced to empirical terms,
or to intersubjective agreement.”*°

The immense advantage that the geometric mind could enjoy in
developing a science whose fundamental principles were already
laid was evident in chemistry, which had undergone a prodigious
development in nineteenth-century Germany. Duhem argued that
the role of the Germans was still small when J.-B. Dumas, followed
ty Laurent, Gerhardt and Wurtz (both from Strasbourg), and the
English Williamson, carried out researches that through the theory
of types made up modern organic chemistry. Only the German
Hofmann, the rival of Wurtz in the discovery of amines, could
be regarded as comparably important. But these researches intro-
duced into chemistry the language and procedures of geometry.
And the German Kekulé formulated the rules accurately and sys-
tematically. The take-off of German chemistry coincided with the
acceptance of atomic notation; this, with the help of the rules fur-
nished by the part of algebra called Analysis situs (topology), per-
mitted prediction, enumeration, and classification of reactions,
syntheses, and isomers of carbon compounds. So organic chemistry,
subject to the geometric mind, brought forth from numerous Ger-
man laboratories thousands and thousands of new organic com-
pounds, all classified and described according to principles drawn
from topology.*? The subtle mind then had far less to do in organic

accepted relativity. See the technical work of E. M. Lémeray, Le Principe de
relativité (Paris, 1916): “Cours libre professé 4 la Faculté des Sciences de
Marseille pendant le premier trimestre 1915.” Lémeray accepted relativity as
“un instrument de coordination et, par conséquent, de découverte d’une puis-
sance singuliére.” H. Dingle has been arguing against special relativity
throughout the 1960s: see “The Case Against Special Relativity,” Nature 216
(1967): 119-22, a restatement of his earlier case in Nature 195 (1962), which
brought.a reply from Max Born. W. H. McCrea, “Why the Special Theory of
Relativity is Correct,” Nature 216 (1967): 122-24, defends Einsteinian ortho-
doxy. A correspondence over the issues begins in Nature 219 (1968): 790-93.

49. Einstein, quoted in Holton, Isis 60 (1969): 156.

50. C. C. Gillispie, The Edge of Objectivity (Princeton, 1960), quoted in
Holton, [sis 60 (1969): 180.

51. In the Kekulé memorial lecture, F. R. Japp said that three-fourths of
74 THE SORCERER'S APPRENTICE

chemistry, while the geometric mind became more indispensable
every day.*?

In spite of his criticisms of German science, Duhem recognized
its genius. In concluding his article, he noted that both French and
German science deviated from the ideal and perfect science, al-
though they deviated from it in opposite directions. In order for
human science to develop fully and exist in a harmonious equilib-
rium, German and French science would have to co-exist, without
trying to supplant one another: “Each must understand that it finds
in the other its indispensable complement.” In 1894 Duhem had
recommended Neumann as a patron saint for young French
physicists:

Il me semble que le doyen des physiciens, Yillustre F. E.
Neumann, doit contempler avec un légitime orgueil cet admi-
rable ensemble de lecons embrassant toutes les parties de la
physique, qu'il a professées il y a vingt ans, et qui, publiées
aujourd’hui par ses éléves demeurent des modéles que n’égale
presque aucun des enseignements de physique de l'Europe.
Quelle étendue de connaissances! quelle pénétration de toutes
les théories! et en méme temps, quelle clarté, quelle élégance
dans Yexposition! Les sept volumes qui renferme les cours de
M. F. E. Neumann devraient étre dans Ja bibliothéque de tous
les jeunes professeurs de physique, auquels ils fourniraient avec
une égale liberalité le fond d’un enseignement solide, et une
forme parfaite.**

In studying German science, the French would find solid proof of
truths they had discovered and formulated without complete cer-
tainty, or else they would find the refutation of errors they had
committed under the intoxication of an imprudent intuition. It was
equally useful for the Germans to study French science: there they
would find problems for their patient analysis to solve as well as

modern organic chemistry is directly or indirectly derived from Kekule’s “ring”
theory of the constitution of benzene. Encyclopedia Britannica 13: 315.

52. Duhem, La science allemande, pp. 37-42; Revue des deux mondes,
683-84. He made the same argument for physical chemistry and stereochemis-
try, but noted that in mineral chemistry, where atomic notation had only a
restricted usage, the esprit de finesse was still the instrument for untangling
the complexity of reactions and for classifying compounds.

53. Duhem, review of F. Neumann, Vorlesungen tiber mathematische
Physik gehalten an der Universitit Kénigsberg. Siebentes Heft. Vorlesungen
tiber die Theorie der Capillaritat (Leipzig, 1894), Recue des questions scienti-
fiques 36 (1894): 267.