ARTHUR S. EDDINGTON 45 



tion. He would, on the contrary, feel deep con- 

 cern if he found himself losing the power of entering 

 into this kind of feeling. In short our environment 

 may and should mean something towards us which is 

 not to be measured with the tools of the physicist or 

 described by the metrical symbols of the mathemati- 

 cian. 



Let science pause before rushing in to apply a sup- 

 posed scientific test; for such a test would go much too 

 far, stripping away from our lives not only our re- 

 ligion but all our feelings which do not belong to the 

 function of a measuring machine." 



We are anxious for perfect truth; but it is hard to 

 say in what form perfect truth Is to be found. I cannot 

 quite believe that it has the form typified by an inven- 

 tory. Somehow, as part of its perfection, there should 

 be incorporated in it that which we esteem as a "sense 

 of proportion." The physicist is not conscious of any 

 disloyalty to truth on occasions when his sense of pro- 

 portion tells him to regard a plank as continuous ma- 

 terial, well knowing that it is "really" empty space 

 containing sparsely scattered electric charges. And 

 the deepest philosophic researches as to the nature of 

 the Deity may give a conception equally out of pro- 

 portion for daily life; so that we should rather em- 

 ploy a conception that was unfolded nearly two thou- 

 sand years ago. 



I am standing on the threshold about to enter a 

 room. It is a complicated business. In the first place 

 I must shove against an atmosphere pressing with a 



- The following pages are from The Nature of the Physical fVorld, 

 by Arthur S. Eddington. By permission of the Macmillan Company, 

 publishers. 



