knowledge can be viewed in the light of direct recognitions. At any rate, regardless of our attitude towards neo-realism, in scientific discussions we must define the meaning of our words clearly and cease to apply the same word, “simultaneity” to a simultaneity in the scientific sense, as holding for the objective world, and to a simultaneity in the neo-realistic sense, as assumed to be apprehended directly. It is remarkable that Dr. Whitehead, who has coined such a profusion of new words when the necessity was scarcely apparent, should have missed this splendid opportunity when it happened to be imperative.[58] [Pg 178] However, it is not our intention to discuss neo-realism further, for the doctrine is of no interest to science. All we wish to point out is that in any scientific theory, whether it be due to a Newton, a Maxwell or an Einstein, we can make up our minds from the start that the author will deal with the objective world of science, treating the private views as mere perspectives, and will frame his concepts and definitions accordingly. It would appear, then, that if Dr. Whitehead wishes to defend a doctrine which stands in conflict with the views of every scientist from Newton to Einstein, it would have been conducive to greater clarity had he restricted his attacks to classical science. For when we attack a new theory such as Einstein’s, which has introduced such a wealth of revolutionary ideas into our understanding of nature, it is to be presumed that the reasons for our dissent arise from those ideas and not from the classical ones which the theory has left intact. Thus, if it were to be proved that matter was continuous and not atomic, we should not hold Einstein’s theory responsible for our past belief in the atomicity of matter. Rather would we challenge the experiments and theories of those classical physicists who thought they had established atomicity. On the other hand, if we objected to the view that the simultaneity of external events was relative to the observer’s motion, claiming it to be absolute, then of course we should be justified in criticising Einstein’s theory proper, since the relativity of simultaneity is peculiar to it. To be sure, Dr. Whitehead appears to be under the impression that he is merely attacking the new revolutionary ideas introduced by Einstein. Thus, he tells us that he is merely defending “the old-fashioned belief in the fundamental character of simultaneity,” but one may well wonder to what period of human thought he is referring. Classical science, some three hundred years ago, had recognised the error of this confusion between external events and the instants at which they were perceived, precisely because this attitude was found to lead to results in utter conflict with experience.