The Evolution of the Sciences 



we have found attached to the final elements of 

 matter. This would realise that unity to which 

 the logic of our mind inclines, by reducing to 

 a single element the ether, the trinity of matter, 

 ether and electricity, out of which science had 

 hitherto striven to construct the image of the 

 world. . . . But let us leave these fancies of 

 our imagination. No theory, which is beyond 

 the reach of experiment, deserves to be called 

 a scientific theory. 



Now, let us conclude with a few words of 

 general inference. As our knowledge of the 

 world is gradually completed by new and more 

 delicate experiments we find that the original 

 conception of it, derived from our senses, is 

 being profoundly transformed, and that new 

 forms are peopling space: Imagine how the ideas 

 of a man would be transformed if, having known 

 the world by touch alone, he were successively 

 to gain his hearing and his sight. But each 

 great discovery of science bestows upon us a new 

 sense, and the world which it makes known to us 

 is neither more nor less real than the world 

 which our hands can touch and our eyes can see, 



because like the latter it has been revealed to us 



114 



