THE AIM OF SCIENCE 51 



thus move; it does not tell us why the earth de- 

 scribes a certain curve round the sun. It simply 

 resumes, in a few brief words, the relationships 

 observed between a vast range of phenomena. 

 It economizes thought by stating in conceptual 

 shorthand that routine of our perceptions which 

 forms for us the universe of gravitating matter." 



To the same purpose, in his impressive His- 

 tory of European Thought in the Nineteenth Century T 

 Dr. J. T. Merz writes: "A complete and simple 

 description admitting of calculation is the aim 

 of all exact science. . . . We shall not expect to 

 find the ultimate and final causes, and science will 

 not teach us to understand nature and life. . . . 

 Science means 'the analysis of phenomena as 

 to their appearance in space and their sequence 

 in time.' " Or again, the true nature of scien- 

 tific explanation is suggested by Kirchhoff's defi- 

 nition of mechanics, as the science of motion, 

 whose object it is "to describe completely and 

 in the simplest manner the motions that occur 

 in nature." 



Huxley expressed the same general view of the 

 Laws of Nature in a letter to Kingsley in 1863 : 



"This universe is, I conceive, like to a great 

 game being played out, and we poor mortals 

 are allowed to take a hand. By great good for- 

 tune the wiser among us have made out some 

 few of the rules of the game, as at present played. 



