IMPLICATIONS AT LARGE 117 



his scientific works to Napoleon, who remarked, 

 "M. Laplace, they tell me you have written this large 

 book on the system of the universe and have never 

 even mentioned its Creator." Laplace's terse reply 

 was, ''Sire, I had no need of any such hypothesis.'' 

 Such an attitude of mind was then less usual than it 

 has since become. That it should become a very 

 ordinary one was inevitable, however, when natural 

 scientists began to specialize more carefully than was 

 formerly the practice, and confined their attention 

 more exclusively to the task of investigating and de- 

 scribing the mechanical and physical aspects of nature. 

 Rigid specialization is one of the conditions of success 

 in this kind of labour; but it is apt to bring the penalty 

 of narrow-mindedness, and of inability to understand 

 things in their larger relations. We go to the me- 

 chanic when we wish to acquire accurate information 

 as to the working of a machine, but his very expertness 

 has often been gained at the cost of permanent failure 

 to acquire such larger knowledge as would enable 

 him to help us in appreciating all that lies behind, 

 and accounts for, machinery. Our dependence upon 

 specialists for knowledge of the physical processes of 

 nature should not blind us to the truth that this knowl- 

 edge pertains to the surface of things, and does not 

 afford that larger and truer view of being and life 

 which is both possible and desirable for human en- 

 lightenment and progress. A description of nature's 

 processes and physical sequences can never do duty 

 for an adequate account of things, of their deeper 



