664
PARTISAN REVIEW
not be extracted from experience but must be freely invented, can we
ever hope to find the right way? . .. I am convinced that we can
dis–
cover by means of purely mathematical constructions the concepts and
the laws connecting them with each other, which furnish the key to
the understanding of natural phenomena. Experience may suggest the
appropriate mathematical concepts, but they most certainly cannot be
deduced from it. Experience remains, of course, the sole criterion of
the physical utility of a mathematical construction. But the creative
principle resides in mathematics. In a certain sense, therefore, I hold it
true that pure thought can grasp reality, as the ancients dreamed.
All in all, physics embodies two opposites of a spectrum, and the
development of physics has drawn upon the contributions of both of
these polar opposites, exemplified by such complementary pairs as:
experimentation versus imagination; logic versus intuition; and objective
facts versus subjective esthetic judgment. There are many examples in the
history of physics that serve to point out the interdependence and
contingent nature of these sets of opposites.
It
even can be said that the
close interrelatedness and interdependence of objective facts and subjective
esthetic judgment is
itself
one of the great beauties of physics. Einstein
realized this very early when he observed, "The most incomprehensible
thing about the universe is the fact that it is comprehensible." From
Einstein's statement we can perhaps derive two logical deductions: We
are capable only of understanding a universe in which beings capable of
understanding it could evolve, and the only kind of universe that is
understandable is one that is able to evolve beings capable of
understanding it. Perhaps these two mutually dependent inferences
constitute evidence for the compatibility of objective fact and esthetic
judgment.
TRANSLATED FROM THE CHINESE BY DAVID MOSER
