The Fourier‐Moment method developed by King and Mullins has been applied to the case of an isolated scratch decaying by viscous flow in an amorphous material such as a simple glass. Using the Stokes‐Einstein equation to relate the diffusivity and viscosity coefficients, a comparison of rates suggests that viscous flow would predominate over volume or surface diffusion as the mechanism of scratch healing in simple amorphous materials for scratch widths above approximately 0.1 &mgr;.