ABSTRACT

But a great difficulty has always remained as regards the argument from absolute rotation, adduced by Newton himself. This argument, in spite of a definite assertion that all motion is relative, is accepted and endorsed by Clerk Maxwell.† It has been revived and emphasized by Heymans,‡ combated by Mach,§ Karl Pearson¶ and many others, and made part of the basis of a

general attack on Dynamics in Professor Ward’s Naturalism and Agnosticism. Let us first state the argument in various forms, and then examine some of the attempts to reply to it. For us, since absolute time and space have been admitted, there is no need to avoid absolute motion, and indeed no possibility of doing so. But if absolute motion is in any case unavoidable, this affords a new argument in favour of the justice of our logic, which, unlike the logic current among philosophers, admits and even urges its possibility.