THOUGH the human mind will ever remain very remote from 

 the mind imagined by Laplace, yet this is only a matter of degrees, 

 in some measure like the difference between a given ordinate of a 

 curve and another immeasurably greater, though still finite, ordinate 

 of the same curve. We resemble this mind, inasmuch as we con- 

 ceive of it. We might even ask whether a mind like that of Newton 

 does not differ less from the mind imagined by Laplace, than the 

 mind of an Australian or of a Fuegian savage differs from the mind 

 of Newton. In other words, the impossibility of stating and inte- 

 grating the differential equations of the universal formula, and of 

 discussing the result, is not fundamental, but rests on the impossi- 

 bility of getting at the necessary determining facts, and, even where 

 this is possible, of mastering their boundless extension, multiplicity, 

 and complexity. 



DU BOIS-REYMOND, Limits of Natural Knowledge. 



