Modern Science : A Criticism 



is the reason why exact science makes so little way 

 with them. Though man knows many million 

 times more about the habits of his fellow-men than 

 about the habits of the stars, yet the former subject 

 is so many million times more complicated than 

 the latter that all his additional knowledge does 

 not avail him. This is the plea. Yet it does not 

 hold water. It is an entire assumption to say that 

 the phenomena of Astronomy are less complicated 

 than the phenomena of vitality. A moment's 

 thought will show that the phenomena of Astronomy 

 are in reality infinitely complex. Take the move- 

 ment of the moon : even with our present acquain- 

 tance with that subject we know that it has some 

 relation to the position and mass of the earth, 

 including its ocean tides ; also to the position and 

 mass of the sun ; also to the position and mass of 

 every one of the planets ; also of the comets, 

 numerous and unknown as they are ; also the 

 meteoric rings ; and finally of all the stars ! 

 The problem, as everyone knows, is absolutely 

 insoluble even for the shortest period ; but when 

 the element of Time enters in, and we consider 

 that to do anything like justice to the problem 

 in an astronomical sense we should have to solve 

 it for at least a million years — during which interval 

 the earth, sun, and other bodies concerned would 

 themselves have been changing their relative posi- 

 tions, it becomes obvious that the whole question 

 is infinitely complex — and yet this is only a small 

 fragment of Astronomy. To debate, therefore, 

 whether the infinite complexity of the movements 



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