PROGRESSIVENESS OF SCIENCE. 53 



to utilise them for our practical purpose ; but, surely, 

 it is time that we ceased supposing that they enable 

 us to explain, to see the ultimate causes, the " real 

 inwardness,'' of what we observe. 



But even if the reiterated distinction between 

 descriptive formulae and explanations be not admitted 

 — its vindication will be found in Karl Pearson's 

 Grammar of Science, — it may perhaps be granted 

 that the less we say about the Uniformity of Nature 

 the better for the consistency of our scientific mood. 



Is not the whole point expressed in Bacon's 

 aphorism ? — " Man, as the minister and interpreter 

 of nature, does and understands as much as his ob- 

 servations on the order of nature, either with regard 

 to things or the mind, permit him, and neither knows 

 nor is capable of more." It is difficult, perhaps, 

 to say what the word " understand " means in this 

 aphorism, but if it mean " redescribe in simpler 

 terms," it expresses our present position. 



There is another consideration which should per- 

 haps give us pause in our talk about the Uniformity 

 of l^ature. It may be illustrated by the following 

 quotation from a paper by Winkler.* 



" Four hundred years ago Nicholas Copernicus 

 left, as a young master of philosophy and of medicine, 

 the old university of Ulica St. Anny, at Cracow, to 

 go to Bologna and to Rome for the purpose of con- 

 secrating his talents as a mathematician to the study 

 of astronomical sciences. There, attacking the 

 enigma of the firmament, he finally attained the 

 certainty that the earth was not, as had been hitherto 

 believed, a central fixed world, but a sphere suspended 

 freely in space, a planet similar to the other planets, 



* Transl. in Rep. Smithsonian Inst, for 1897, pp. 237-246. 



