Does Matter Exist? 



by observation and experiment, but it is infinitely 

 vaster and richer. As for the scientific theories 

 which follow each other with such rapidity, we 

 cannot expect them to reveal what lies hidden 

 behind phenomena or what is the final plan of 

 the universe. However, they are something 

 more than wind and smoke they respect 

 established facts; and if they cannot explain 

 they at least classify them. This is their great, 

 perhaps their only merit. They are attempts at 

 rational classification, attempts which must be 

 recast whenever a new harvest enriches our 

 knowledge. The harvests accumulate cease- 

 lessly, and the palace of hypothesis in which they 

 are stored is ever in process of reconstruction. 

 It is for this very reason that science is alive. 



