The Genesis of The Concept of Physical Law

Abstract

Investigation of physical laws is among the most important tasks of modern natural science. The naturalist observes recurrent associations of certain events or qualities. He is convinced that these regularities, observed in the past, will hold in the future as well, and he calls them “laws of nature”, especially if he has succeeded in expressing them by mathematical formulas. Knowledge of physical laws is of the greatest importance both to the theorist and to the engineer. Whoever knows a law of nature is able to predict and, consequently, to control events: without investigation of laws there is no modern technology. As Western civilization of the modern era is based materially on its technology, so it is distinguished spiritually from the cultures of all other periods and nations by making the investigation of natural laws the basic task of science. To primitive and oriental civilizations the concept of physical law is quite unknown. We shall see that it was virtually unknown to antiquity and the Middle Ages, and that it did not arise before the middle of the seventeenth century.