LECTURE I. 



THE UXFATHOMED UNIVERSE AND THE 



AIM OF SCIENCE. 



§ 1. Man's Early Outlook on Nature. § 2. Growing Recognition 

 of a Scientific Order. § 3. Aims of Science. § 4. Limit a^ 

 tions of Natural Knowledge. § 5. The Function of Feeling in 

 our View of Nature. § 6. Towards a Philosophical Inter- 

 pretation of Nature. § 7. Science and Religion. 



§ 1. Mans Early Outlook on Nature. 



In early days men must have looked somewhat dis- 

 tractedly and uncomprehendingly on the crowded world 

 without, discerning only glimpses of order amid the big 

 booming confusion. There is a ring of truth in the fine 

 description .^schylus gave, that — " first, beholding they 

 beheld in vain, and, hearing, heard not, but like shapes in 

 dreams, mixed all things wildly down the tedious time, nor 

 knew to build a house against the sun with wicketed sides, 

 nor any wood- work knew, but lived like silly ants, beneath 

 the ground, in hollow caves unsunned. There came to them 

 no steadfast sign of winter, nor of spring flower-perfumed, 

 nor of summer full of fruit, but blindly and lawlessly they 

 did all things.'' 



Poincare speaks of the days before Man learned from the 

 stars that there was a reign of law. " Isolated amidst a 

 nature where everything was a mystery to him, terrified at 

 each unexpected manifestation of incomprehensible forces, 

 he was incapable of seeing in the conduct of the universe 

 anything but caprice" (1913, p. 290). So large were 



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