The Principles of Light and Color
PREFACE
“The preface of my work is like a Hebrew book; it begins at its very end.
Having spent several years in developing this large volume, what is my excuse for thrusting it out upon mankind?
None at all unless human knowledge and upbuilding can be enhanced thereby.
Am I laboring under a vain delusion when I assert that no science whatever, excepting pure mathematics, has thus far reached down to basic principles — that in spite of the wonderful achievements of experimental scientists, no definite conceptions of atomic machinery, or the fundamental processes of thermal, electric, chemical, physiological or psychological actions have been attained, and that because the correlations of matter and force have been misapprehended?
If I am deluded and cannot depend upon the thousand facts that seem to sustain me and clear up so many mysteries, it is certainly a sad matter, for then no one will be made the wiser for my labors; if I am right, and so many scientists are wrong in their conceptions of force, then too there is a melancholy side to the question, for great will be the trouble of having to pull up old stakes and put down new ones, and some opinionated persons will be so indignant at having dear old beliefs attacked, that is unable to demolish my facts in fair discussion will present one-sided views of them, or attack the author himself.
I hope and pray that I may be duly abused, however, by all such crystallized conservatives, otherwise it will show that my efforts to advance this great cause of truth have been but feeble.
After all, if this work shall develop some new and better foundations of scientific truth, scientific men themselves should rejoice at it even if it does cause a little trouble to adjust themselves to new conditions, for the more truth they get, the more luminous and triumphant will their pathway of progress become, and they will be able to build a superstructure upon these new foundations that is far more magnificent than any which my own limited efforts could achieve."
Source: Archive.org