610 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



a clothing of flesh and blood which brings with it 

 beauty, sublimity, and elegance, pointing to and reveal- 

 ing something deeper and higher : the individual and 

 the spiritual, for which no mechanical formvda can be 

 found. 



In the second place, the analysis of the methods of 

 science, as it has been most exhaustively carried 

 through by Prof. Mach, urges the reflection : that 

 the conceptions of science, or what are usually termed 

 the laws of nature, such as we know them, do not 

 refer at all to nature as a whole, but that they are 

 inevitably bound up with finite departments and occur- 

 rences. For, as they only refer to regularities — i.e., to 

 numerous repetitions in time and space, or to frequent 

 examples, — they cannot, of course, be applied to the 

 whole of nature, which is unique, and cannot be 

 compared with limited portions of itself as they may 

 exist in time and space. This argument alone suffices 

 to prove how illegitimate it is to extend such considera- 

 tions, for instance, as are afforded by the second law 

 of thermo-dynamics (the dissipation of energy), to the 

 world as a whole. Accordingly, here also we find a 

 limit placed to our speculations as to Nature in her 

 entirety, regarding which we cannot apply in any way 

 the term finite or infinite ; inasmuch as one thing 

 is certain, that all our knowledge of things natural 

 refers only to a portion, and that an extremely small 

 portion, of the universe. 

 Artistic Those thinkers who, in spite of these limits which 



nature. eucompass our scientific study of nature, nevertheless 



