Modern Science : A Criticism 



near limits of rigorous exactness ! An impreg- 

 nable theory, or one nearing the limit of impreg- 

 nability, is in fact as great an absurdity as an 

 impregnable armour-plate. Certainly, given the 

 cannon-balls, you can generally find an armour- 

 plate which will be proof against them ; but given 

 the armour-plate, you can always find cannon- 

 balls which will smash it up. 



The method of Science, as being a method of 

 artificial limitation or actual ignorance, is curiously 

 illustrated by a consideration of its various branches. 

 I have taken some examples from Astronomy, 

 which is considered the most exact of the physical 

 sciences. Now does it not seem curious that 

 Astronomy — the study of the heavenly bodies, 

 which are the most distant from us of all bodies, 

 and most difficult to observe — should yet be the 

 most perfect of the sciences } Yet the reason is 

 obvious. Astronomy is the most perfect science 

 because we know least about it — because our ignorance 

 of the actual phenomena is most profound. Situated 

 in fact as we are, on a speck in space, with our 

 observations limited to periods of time which, 

 compared with the stupendous flights of the stars, 

 are merely momentary and evanescent, we are in 

 somewhat the position of a mole surveying a rail- 

 way track and the flight of locomotives. And 

 as a man seeing a very small arc of a very vast 

 circle easily mistakes it for a straight line, so we 

 are easily satisfied with cheap deductions and solu- 

 tions in Astronomy which a more extensive 

 experience would cause us to reject. The man 



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