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play” to interprct physics within a prescntationalist cpistcmology has not bcen sulhciently cmphasizcd to catch the attcntion of most scien-tists and philosophers, lct alonc cducated laymćn.

Ernst Machs son, Ludwig Mach, gathcrcd materia! for a biugraphy of his father during the 1920S and 1930S but apparcntly destroyed his materiał during World War II. II. D. Heller, a resident of Praguc who later cmigrated to IsracI, began to write a biography but his early dcath cut the work short and it appeared in 1964 limited in scope and completencss. My own interest in Mach grew slowly and fitfully. Pro-fessor John G. Burkę, historian of science and Dean of the Social Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles, first encouraged me to write on Mach, and I prepared a fifty page paper during a seminar in the history of science in 1965. When I mentioned that substantially morę materiał was available, Professor Burkę suggested I write my doctoral dissertation on Mach. At that timc I declined, arguing that I preferred not to write a “negative” work. I fclt that it would be morę suitable if someonc basically sympathetic with Machs philosophical ideas wrotc about him.

During the next year I conccntrated on a “positive” dissertation in the philosophy of history in which I developcd my own ideas. My doctoral board, howcvcr, preferred a rescarch dissertation. This fact along with the realization that a biography of Ernst Mach was crit-ically needed finaliy persuadcd me to undertake what gradually be-came an awesomc task.

Thrce and a half ycars later I finished a 1,200-page doctoral dissertation hopefully balanced betwcen biography, science, and philosophy. My own stylistic deficiencies and tcndency to overwritc on secondary figures persuadcd the publisher to ask me to cut the work in half. This has bcen donc with consccjuences best judged by the reader.

The surviving condensed version is organized chronologicnlly but in a way that requircs explanation. In generał, biographical chaptcrs al-ternatc with ones on science or philosophy, with the science or philosophy chapters covcring the same chronological period as the preccding biographical chaptcrs. In the second half of the book, howevcr, cxcept for short sections describing cvent$ betwcen 1895 and Machs paralysis in 189.^ and betwcen 1913 and his death in 1916, the narrativc focus shifts away from Mach’s outward lifc to the inward and outward happenings in the livcs of his friends and philosophical opponents. In that section Machs psychological rcactions to thesc happenings pro-

vidc a unifying thrcad from chaptcr to chaptcr. Ultimatcly, thcsc intel-lectual and cmotional rcactions betonie the central concćrn of the book as Mach dcsperatcly attempted to rise abovc the philosophical contro-versics that threatened to destroy both his life spirit and what he felt were his most important contributions to the philosophy and method-ology of science. In short, the second half of this book should be under-stood as a biography only in a very qualificd and largcly indircct sense, cvcn though somc of the later chapters niay wcll outwcigh the earlier chaptcrs in elucidating what is crucial to an understanding of Mach's lifc.

A striking feature of Mach’s carly scientific work was his anticipation of later discoverics. Machs interest in microphotograhy. use of multi-dimensipns in interpreting atomie behavior, invcstigations into what camc to be called “Mach bands,” and pioneer work on Gcstalt phe-nomena nil took place roughly half a century hefore rediscovcry by others of his own work and its further devclopment.

Ernst Mach accjuircd a modest scientific reputation long before he hecamc widely known as a philosopher. Indeed, he ncver considcrcd himsclf a philosopher, denied he had a system, and preferred to think of himself as a physicist with an interest in the history and methodol-ogy of science. Ile even considered his cpoch-making criticisms of Newton’s ideas on mass and “absolutc” space, time, and motion as basically scientific rather than philosophical in character, in spite of the elose rcscmblancc of his views with those of the eightccnth-ccntury phdosophci Gcorgc Berkeley. Mach’s attitude in this respect pro-foundly influenced even great scientists into unconsciously adopting not mcrcly Mach’s ideas as a scientific methodology, hut morę important, Machs epistcmological assumptions. Undcrstandably, when thcsc scientists finally awókc to the actual character of Mach’s philosophical crusade, bitter controversics erupted which tormented Mach*s last ycars and which have never rcally ceased.

Mach’s later life was a painful Gotterdammcrung. The suicides of I Icinrich Mach, his brilliant second son, and of his colleague and philosophical opponent Ludwig Boltzmann, together with a stroke that disablcd the right half of Mach’s body for the finał two decades of his lifc combincd to make him physically unablc to mect the storm of philosophical protest against his ideas which peaked betwcen t«)0) and 1911. But answer thesc criticisms and in the cycs of his followcrs tiiumph ovcr them Mach did. With the aid of his first son, Ludwig

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