IN THE LIGHT OF PHYSIOLOGICAL, PSYCHOLOGICAL BY DR. ERNST MACH EMERITUS PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF VIENNA FROM THE GERMAN BY THOMAS J. MCCORMACK PRINCIPAL OF THE LA SALLE-PERU TOWNSHIP CHICAGO THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY LONDON KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRÜBNER & CO., LTD. 1906 PREFATORY NOTE. The three essays constituting the present volume were written originally for The Monist, and appeared in that magazine in the issues for April, 1901, July, 1902, and October, 1903. Last year they were partly incorporated in their original German in Professor Mach's latest published work, Erkenntniss und Irrthum: Skizzen zur Psychologie der Forschung (Leipsic, J. A. Barth). In these essays Professor Mach discusses the questions of the nature, origin, and development of our concepts of space from the three points of view of the physiology and psychology of the senses, history, and physics, in all which departments his profound researches have gained for him an authoritative and commanding position. While in most works on the foundations of geometry one point of view only is emphasized,-be it that of logic, epistemology, psychology, history, or the formal technology of the science,—here light is shed upon the subject from all points of view combined, and the different sources from which the many divergent forms that the science of space has historically assumed, are thus shown forth with a distinctness and precision that in suggestiveness at least leave little to be desired. In the belief that these essays in breadth and comprehensiveness of view constitute a unique and indispensable contribution to the discussions now waging concerning the philosophical foundations of metageometry, they are herewith given to the public in permanent and generally accessible form. The methodology of both physical and formal science will receive from them a salutary stimulus. LA SALLE, ILL., July, 1906. THOMAS J. MCCORMACK.. |