24 MODERN SCIENCE. 



tirely osseous, and so far not entirely exact and invariable ; but Science 

 can go no farther and there, for the present, it may remain ! 



Some day perhaps, when all this showy vesture of scientific theory, 

 (which has this peculiarity that only the learned can see it) has been 

 quasi-completed, and Humanity is expected to walk solemnly forth in its 

 new garment for all the world to admire as in Anderssen's story of the 

 Emperor's New Clothes some little child standing on a door-step will 

 cry out: "But he has got nothing on at all," and amid some confusion it 

 will be seen that the child is right. 



NOTE. 



" I fear I have very imperfectly succeeded in expressing my strong conviction that, 

 before a rigorous logical scrutiny, the Reign of Law will prove to be an unverified hypoth- 

 esis, the Uniformity of Nature an ambiguous expression, the certainty of our scientific 

 inferences to a great extent a delusion." (Stanley Jevons, Principles of Science, p. ix.) 



