Modern Science : A Criticism 



Even this shell is partially human ; it is not 

 entirely osseous, and so far not entirely exact 

 and invariable ; but Science can go no farther — 

 and there, for the present, it may remain 1 



Some day perhaps, when all this showy vesture 

 of scientific theory (which has this peculiarity 

 that only the learned can see it) has been quasi- 

 completed, and Humanity is expected to walk 

 solemnly forth in its new garment for all the 

 world to admire — as in Anderssen's story of the 

 Emperor's New Clothes — some little child standing 

 on a door-step will cry out : " But he has got 

 nothing on at all," and amid some confusion it 

 will be seen that the child is right. 



NOTE 



" I fear I have very imperfectly succeeded in expressing my 

 strong conviction that, before a rigorous logical scrutiny, the Reign 

 of Law will prove to be an unverified hypothesis, the Uniformity 

 of Nature an ambiguous expression, the certainty of our scientific 

 inferences to a great extent a delusion." (Stanley Jevons, Principles 

 of Science, p. ix.) 



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