98 GREAT MEN OF SCIENCE 



He is right in so far as he sees in all completely understood 

 knowledge the direct action of the Divinity,^ and inasmuch 

 as a Divinity not recognisable in all natural events, also those 

 in the domain of the non-living, would in no way deserve the 

 name, which is linked with the highest endeavour of human- 

 ity, reaching out beyond its own limits. More or less under- 

 stood knowledge thus appears, from Newton's point of view, 

 as Divine action become more or less intelligible in some of 

 its details. None of the greatest men of science has ever 

 maintained that when it becomes partially intelligible it is 

 any less wonderful than when entirely unintelligible: as are 

 living organisms, for example. All their statements testify to 

 the opposite. The results of investigation show this directly; 

 every new piece of insight obtained, as that into the Kepler- 

 ian laws by means of gravitation, immediately reveals a 

 further great region of which we are ignorant - 'Rationem 

 vero harum Gravitatis proprietatum ex phaenomenis nondum 

 potui deducere' (But I have not been able to discover the 

 reason for this property of gravitation from the phenomena), 

 and the same is true to-day. The whole of the knowledge 

 we have ever obtained through the medium of our senses 

 still presents the same picture as Newton saw in his old age; 

 a few beautiful pebbles and shells picked up on the shore of 

 the great ocean of the Unknown. But the very fact of the 

 astonishing interconnection between everything that we 

 are able to fish up from this ocean, and so come to under- 

 stand more closely, assures us that the mind of mortal man 

 has the right to take refuge in this ocean, being itself a 

 part of it, and drawn to it when human fears must be over- 

 come, and when humanity strives to understand its own 

 existence. 



It is worthy of remark here that Newton's complete 

 humility in face of the great unknown, together with the 



1 This appears particularly from Newton's letters to Doctor Bentley, 

 a theologian who applied to him in regard to these questions. 



