62 G. F. C. SEARLE, M.A., F.R.S., ON THE 
Those who are much occupied with literary work are exposed 
to the danger of treating realities as if they were merely 
subjects for academic discussion. In physics, however, there is 
so constant an appeal to experiment, either directly or through 
mathematical reasoning, that students of physics are to a 
considerable extent freed from this danger, and in biology 
experiment is now rescuing that science from the thraldom 
of opinion. But in regard to theological studies, it is perhaps 
true to say that mere opinion has in some cases been allowed a 
position which does not belong to it. Thus many assert that 
miracles never happened, the on!y ground for the assertion being 
their opinion that they are impossible. Much would be gained 
if it were realised that what occurred in the past is not in the 
least affected by the opinions of persons, however exalted, who 
live in the twentieth century. 
There is a popular notion that some strange impersonal thing 
called Modern Science has examined the universe in the cold 
light of experiment and has arrived at infallible conclusions. 
But this is not a true picture. for there is no one of the con- 
clusions of modern science which can be said to be absolutely 
established, and the utmost that can be said of any conclusion 
is that the experiments are in approximate ayreement with it. 
It is true that some conclusions become more and more firmly 
established as the accuracy of the experiments is increased, but, 
on the other hand, an increase of accuracy sometimes requires 
us to modify a conclusion. A striking example is furnished by 
the discovery of the gas argon in the atmosphere. In spite of 
an old experiment of Henry Cavendish, it was believed that 
atmospheric air was a mixture of oxygen, nitrogen, carbonic 
acid gas and water vapour, with very small additions of other 
known gases. But the accurate work of Lord Rayleigh and 
Sir W. Ramsay showed that more than one per ceut. of what 
was supposed to be nitrogen was the previously unknown gas 
argon, and this has led to the detection of other gases, 
$4. The Complexity of the Universe—In the earlier stages of 
scientific progress it was to some extent possible to divide 
science into branches and to confine attention to one branch at 
a time; it was possible to attend to the phenomena exhibited 
in one or more bodies without much regard to the relations 
between those bodies and the rest of the universe. But modern 
investigation makes it logically impossible to work any longer 
in water-tight compartments, and is gradually leading us to 
appreciate the fact that the number of actions to which every 
particle in the universe is continually subject is very great. 
