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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLII. No. 1088 



plored within the electron. What would the 

 illustrious Dalton think of all this could he 

 contemplate to-day the fate of his epoch- 

 making theory after a century of scientific 

 progress? We may imagine him saying to 

 himself: "Well, Well! the concept of the 

 atom seems to have made some progress 

 since my time; evidently it still is moving 

 onwards. And yet, the flourishing state of 

 latter-day physics and chemistry gives me 

 an impression that the atomic theory, with 

 all its faults, has played a certain useful 

 part in the advancement of knowledge." 

 Surely then, it may be said, we can make 

 a final stand upon the laws of nature. Are 

 not these immutable and eternal? Do they 

 not govern the world as overruling necessi- 

 ties? Science and philosophy alike reply: 

 Who knows ? The laws of nature are known 

 to us only as observed uniformities or har- 

 monies of action. We can not affirm with 

 certainty that any one of them — not the 

 law of the conservation of energy, not even 

 the law of gravitation — is fixed or universal. 

 No particular law of nature — and here I 

 employ the words of a great master of 

 mathematical physics — will ever be more 

 than approximate and probable, nor can 

 we state it completely. But this, saj^s some 

 one, is a confession of the fundamental 

 bankruptcy of science! No; our cynical 

 friend goes too fast; his remark betrays a 

 failure to comprehend either the aims of 

 modern science or the nature of scientific 

 progress. We have no notion that our 

 plummets will so easily touch the bottom of 

 nature; we do not hope to divine the final 

 essence of things. And were it otherwise, 

 were it possible for our knowledge of na- 

 ture to be frozen, once for all, into a hard, 

 mechanical and completed system, the most 

 potent spell of science would be broken. 

 A deep-seated instinct of our human nature 

 here asserts itself; one that has found ex- 

 pression in the philosophy and poetry of 



every age. It is a saying of Confucius that 

 they who know the truth are not equal to 

 those who love it. Which one of us, were 

 we forced to choose, would not in the end 

 make the famous choice of Lessing: 



If God held in his right hand all truth, and in 

 his left nothing but the ever-ardent desire for 

 truth, even with the condition that I should err 

 forever, and bade me choose, I would bow down to 

 his left hand, saying, "Father, give me this; pure 

 truth can be but for Thee alone." 



Such a choice, however, is not very likely 

 to fall to our lot; nor does the poet here 

 suggest the actual attitude of science. 

 Malbranche is nearer to it in that delight- 

 ful remark that if he held truth captive in 

 his hand he would open his hand and let 

 it fly, in order that he might pursue and 

 capture it again. Here we sense the spirit 

 of the sportsman. With somewhat of the 

 same spirit, beyond a doubt, does the dis- 

 coverer play his small part in the mighty 

 game of science. 



And this brings us to the vital point. 

 Not merely in a spirit of sportsmanship 

 does science play her game ; she also strives 

 to realize an ideal, one that is very plain 

 and simple. And this ideal is, in a single 

 word, progress. Not to solve the ultimate 

 riddles of the universe, if such there be, 

 not to attain to absolute truth, but to ad- 

 vance knowledge — such is the aim of sci- 

 ence. When once we have felt the full 

 force of this, all is clear. Then we see 

 that although the laws of nature can- be 

 formulated in only a tentative and provi- 

 sional way, they are not for this reason. 

 less valuable to us ; they are more so. Then 

 we grasp Huxley's full meaning when he 

 calls these laws the rules of the game we 

 play. We can not with certainty ascribe 

 to them any quality of necessary or in- 

 flexible truth. Our knowledge of nature 

 is of inestimable value to us; but it is no- 

 where absolute or final. The profound 



