THE REAL WORLD 367 



such events with a high degree of rehabiUty which is also precisely 

 predictable. 



Accreditation of their claims to foretell the future brought honor to 

 augurs, prophets, soothsayers, oracles, and seers. Shall we not then 

 glory in our creation of the natural science which vastly outstrips 

 them all? Yet, so enormous is the power of scientific prediction, we 

 ordinarily take such power wholly for granted. We should not. How- 

 ever much predictive power may have been sought, its attainability 

 was not assured, and its attainment is a major discovery. Poincare 

 puts the matter at its very mildest when, after noting that scientific 

 prediction sometimes fails, he adds: 



Always the scientist is less often mistaken than a prophet who pre- 

 dicts at random. Besides the progress though slow is continuous, so 

 that, though more and more bold, scientists are less and less misled. 

 This is little, but it is enough. 



It is, I think, more than enough to call in question remarks on "the 

 myth of physical objects." 



Quine readily concedes the predictive utility of science, and he 

 adds to the statement earlier quoted the further remark that: 



The myth of physical objects is epistemologically superior to most 

 [myths] in that it has proved more efficacious than other myths as a 

 device for working a manageable structure into the flux of ex- 

 perience. 



To the best of my knowledge, the "myth of physical objects" is not 

 just "superior to most" myths. On the contrary, it is unique among 

 all in leading us to a conceptual structure from which an immense 

 number of confirmable and confirmed predictions are drawn. The 

 laws of science are sought, discovered, and expressed in the terms of 

 this "myth." I know of no substantial body of relations useful for pre- 

 diction ever sought, found, or expressed in terms of the myth of 

 Homeric gods: indeed, the sibylline utterances of the Delphic oracle 

 make a nice case in point. If epistemology can find between physical 

 objects and gods a diflFerence "only in degree and not in kind," this 

 demonstrates rather less the mythical quality of objects, far more 

 the need for re-examination of the epistemology. 



The phenomenal success of scientific prediction points beyond 

 itself, Hertz recognized, to the actual realization of a condition 

 necessary for such success. 



