THE UNFATHOMED UNIVERSE 25 



unsolved problems and of the way in which the solution of 

 one raises another, every one is aware. 



For the reasons we have indicated in this discussion and 

 for others, there are many, in this age of extraordinarily 

 rapid scientific discovery, who stand wondering before an 

 unfathomed universe. We have made many charts, but 

 there is still more sea. Perhaps one of the most hopeful 

 signs at once of the progressiveness of science and of its 

 conformability with the humanities and philosophies is in 

 its vivid realisation of its own limitations. 



From the absence of a scientific answer to a scientific 

 question, we do not dream of arguing, as has been, often 

 argued, that some other kind of answer, say theological, 

 must be true. We have to render to Caesar the things that 

 are Caesar's ; and there is no exchange between scientific and 

 transcendental coinage. But what we may usefully recog- 

 nise is the self-imposed limitation of science, that it seeks, 

 for certain purposes and by certain methods, to describe 

 occurrences and processes in the simplest possible, universally 

 verifiable terms, and that it does not pretend to exhaust their 

 reality. This leads us to recognise the validity of feeling in 

 an interpretation of Nature. 



5. The Function of Feeling in our View of Nature. 



The world without has played a great part in the educa- 

 tion of the human spirit. Its enigmas have quickened Man's 

 intelligence; its practical problems have trained his will; 

 Animate Nature in particular has been a school of feeling; 

 the mother's face has been a factor in the evolution of per- 

 sonality (see Merz, 1916). In her manifold opportunities 

 Nature has thus helped man to polish the mirror of his mind, 

 and the process continues. Nature still supplies us with 



