xxxi.J LIMITS OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 73 



regard the present as the outcome of what is past, and the 

 cause of what is to come. To the view of perfect intelli- 

 gence nothing is uncertain. The astronomer can calculate 

 the positions of the heavenly bodies when thousands of 

 generations of men shall have passed away, and in this fact 

 we have some illustration, as Laplace remarks, of the power 

 which scientific prescience may attain. Doubtless, too, all 

 efforts in the investigation of nature tend to bring us nearer 

 to the possession of that ideally perfect power of intelli- 

 gence. Nevertheless, as Laplace with profound wisdom 

 adds, 1 we must ever remain at an infinite distance from the 

 goal of our aspirations. 



Let us assume, for a time at least, as a highly probable 

 hypothesis, that whatever is to happen must be the out- 

 come of what is ; there then arises the question, What is ? 

 Now our knowledge of what exists must ever remain im- 

 perfect and fallible in two respects. Firstly, we do not 

 know all the matter that has been created, nor the exact 

 manner in which it has been distributed through space. 

 Secondly, assuming that we had that knowledge, we 

 should still be wanting in a perfect knowledge of the 

 way in which the particles of matter will act upon each 

 other. The power of scientific prediction extends at the 

 most to the limits of the data employed. Every con- 

 clusion is purely hypothetical and conditional upon the 

 non-interference of agencies previously undetected. The 

 law of gravity asserts that every body tends to approach 

 towards every other body, with a certain determinate 

 force ; but, even supposing the law to hold true, it does 

 not assert that the body will approach. No single law 

 of nature can warrant us in making an absolute predic- 

 tion. We must know all the laws of nature and all the 

 existing agents acting according to those laws before we 

 can say what will happen. To assume, then, that scientific 

 method can take everything within its cold embrace of 

 uniformity, is to imply that the Creator cannot outstrip 

 the intelligence of his creatures, and that the existing 

 Universe is not infinite in extent and complexity, an as- 

 sumption for which I see no logical basis whatever. 



1 Theorie Analytique des Probability, quoted by Babbage, Ninth 

 Bridgewater Treatise, p. 173. 



3 B 2 



