MYSTICISM AND LOGIC 



all the particles in the universe, there will be theo- 

 retically some one formula embracing them all, and this 

 formula may be regarded as the single and supreme law 

 of the spatio-temporal world. Thus what is surprising 

 in physics is not the existence of general laws, but their 

 extreme simplicity. It is not the uniformity of nature 

 that should surprise us, for, by sufficient analytic ingenuity, 

 any conceivable course of nature might be shown to 

 exhibit uniformity. What should surprise us is the 

 fact that the uniformity is simple enough for us to be 

 able to discover it. But it is just this characteristic 

 of simplicity in the laws of nature hitherto discovered 

 which it would be fallacious to generalise, for it is obvious 

 that simplicity has been a part cause of their discovery, 

 and can, therefore, give no ground for the supposition 

 that other undiscovered laws are equally simple. 



The fallacies to which these two kinds of unity have 

 given rise suggest a caution as regards all use in philoso- 

 phy of general results that science is supposed to have 

 achieved. In the first place, in generalising these results 

 beyond past experience, it is necessary to examine very 

 carefully whether there is not some reason making it 

 more probable that these results should hold of all that 

 has been experienced than that they should hold of 

 things universally. The sum total of what is experienced 

 by mankind is a selection from the sum total of what 

 exists, and any general character exhibited by this 

 selection may be due to the manner of selecting rather 

 than to the general character of that from which ex- 

 perience selects. In the second place, the most general 

 results of science are the least certain and the most Liable to 

 be upset by subsequent research. In utilizing these results 

 as the basis of a philosophy, we sacrifice the most valu- 

 able and remarkable characteristic of scientific method, 



