228 The Bible of Nature 



understand as to its precise significance. How 

 far we are from understanding what turning the 

 page really means. 



It is part of the scientific business to describe 

 happenings in the simplest terms, to connect par- 

 ticular results with particular conditions, to make 

 formulae which sum up often repeated chains of 

 sequence — how much of this there is still to do in 

 every department of inquiry. Many of the unsolved 

 problems of things as they are will doubtless be 

 cleared up if science goes on developing, and will 

 be then replaced by other unsolved problems. So 

 it will go on — perhaps asymptotically. But even 

 supposing all problems of this sort were cleared up, 

 we should not have explained the world. Why 

 not ? Because the terms used are not self-explan- 

 atory. 



There are many different forms of energy in 

 the world, — powers of changing the state of mo- 

 tion or of doing work. Science measures these 

 different "energies," studies their transferences 

 and transformations, and demonstrates their in- 

 destructibility, or, at any rate, our inability to 

 increase or decrease their amount by the slightest. 

 What energy ultimately is, science does not pre- 

 tend to tell us. 



There are many different kinds of matter in 

 the world occupying space and possessing weight. 

 Science studies the properties of the different kinds 



