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 ! 



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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