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SCIENCE REVERENT BEFORE COSMIC 

 WONDERS 



By Arthur S. Eddington 



SOME would put the question in this form: "Is 

 the unseen world revealed by the mystical out- 

 look a reality?" Reality is one of those inde- 

 terminate words which might lead to infinite philo- 

 sophical discussions and irrelevancies. There is less 

 danger of misunderstandings if we put the question in 

 this form: "Are we, in pursuing the mystical outlook, 

 facing the hard facts of experience?" 



Surely we are. I think that those who would wish 

 to take cognisance of nothing but the measurements 

 of the scientific world made by our sense-organs are 

 shirking one of the most immediate facts of experi- 

 ence, namely, that consciousness is not wholly, nor 

 even primarily a device for receiving sense-impressions. 



We may the more boldly insist that there is another 

 outlook than the scientific one, because in practice a 

 more transcendental outlook is almost universally ad- 

 mitted. I cannot do better than quote a memorable 

 description by J. S. Holland: 



"There is an hour of the Indian night, a little be- 

 fore the first glimmer of dawn, when the stars are 

 unbelievably clear and close above, shining with a 

 radiance beyond our belief in this foggy land. The 



1 From Science and the Unseen World, by Arthur S. Eddington. By 

 permission of the Macmillan Company, publishers. 



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