The Limits of Physical Science. 31 



on professed observation, it must be always open to 

 the objection, and its certainty qualified by the con- 

 sideration, that the vastly greater part of the contem- 

 poraneous fact was beyond the ken of the observer. 



This source of error will appear the more formidable, 

 if we keep in view that the concrete existence forming 

 the matter of investigation is united with other exist- 

 ences not in our plane only, but in an infinite number 

 of planes intersecting at the point of observation. 

 We are not situated at a point in a level surface 

 over which the eye may range to the utmost stretch 

 of vision ; we are enclosed within a sphere whose 

 centre is in relation to us everywhere, and its circum- 

 ference nowhere. The instances examined by the 

 scientist, and on the precise and complete knowledge 

 of which our cosmic theories are built, are assumed 

 to be one organically with every part of that un- 

 bounded whole, which in every direction passes beyond 

 the range of our experience into infinity. 



We are not warranted, then, in concluding with 

 assured certainty, from the limits of our narrow and 

 imperfect experience, over the whole universe of con- 

 -crete being. For whatever doubt attaches to the 

 completeness of our interpretation of nature, as seen, 

 -expands and grows with every step outward, increas- 

 ing as the sphere widens in every direction towards 

 illimitable space. A scientific truth, as close to reality 

 as any induction of physical science can be, and valid 

 within the range of exrjerience, becomes, when carried 



