166 DOC. 38 ETHER AND RELATIVITY
8
SIDELIGHTS
ON
RELATIVITY
clumsy
and
contradictory.
Almost
imper-
ceptibly
the theoretical
physicists
adapted
themselves to
a
situation
which,
from
the
standpoint
of
their
mechanical
programme,
was
very
depressing.
They
were
parti-
cularly
influenced
by
the
electro-dynamical
[7]
investigations
of
Heinrich
Hertz. For
whereas
they
previously
had
required
of
a
conclusive
theory
that it
should
con-
tent
itself
with the
fundamental
concepts
which
belong
exclusively
to mechanics
(e.g.
densities, velocities, deformations,
stresses)
they
gradually
accustomed them-
selves to
admitting
electric
and
magnetic
force
as
fundamental
concepts
side
by
side
with
those of
mechanics,
without
requiring a
mechanical
interpretation
for
them. Thus
the
purely
mechanical view
of nature
was
gradually
abandoned.
But
this
change
led
to
a
fundamental
dualism
which in
the
long-run
was insupportable.
A
way
of
escape was now sought
in
the
reverse
direction, by
reducing
the
principles
of mechanics to those
of
electricity,
and
this
especially as
confidence
in
the strict
validity
of
the
equations
of
Newton’s
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