344 CONCLUSION 



it actually stands in regard to it. I might sacrifice the 

 detailed arguments of the last four chapters (perhaps 

 marred by dialectic entanglement) if I could otherwise 

 convey the significance of the recent change which has 

 overtaken scientific ideals. The physicist now regards 

 his own external world in a way which I can only describe 

 as more mystical, though not less exact and practical, 

 than that which prevailed some years ago, when it was 

 taken for granted that nothing could be true unless an 

 engineer could make a model of it. There was a time 

 when the whole combination of self and environment 

 which makes up experience seemed likely to pass under 

 the dominion of a physics much more iron-bound than 

 it is now. That overweening phase, when it was almost 

 necessary to ask the permission of physics to call one's 

 soul one's own, is past. The change gives rise to 

 thoughts which ought to be developed. Even if we 

 cannot attain to much clarity of constructive thought 

 we can discern that certain assumptions, expectations 

 or fears are no longer applicable. 



Is it merely a well-meaning kind of nonsense for a 

 physicist to affirm this necessity for an outlook beyond 

 physics? It is worse nonsense to deny it. Or as that 

 ardent relativist the Red Queen puts it, "You call that 

 nonsense, but I've heard nonsense compared with which 

 that would be as sensible as a dictionary". 



For if those who hold that there must be a physical 

 basis for everything hold that these mystical views are 

 nonsense, we may ask — What then is the physical basis 

 of nonsense? The "problem of nonsense" touches the 

 scientist more nearly than any other moral problem. 

 He may regard the distinction of good and evil as too 

 remote to bother about; but the distinction of sense 

 and nonsense, of valid and invalid reasoning, must be 



