Essays on the use and limit of the imagination in science / by John Tyndall.

  • Tyndall, John, 1820-1893.
Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Essays on the use and limit of the imagination in science / by John Tyndall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    air, or ether—from the physical qualities of the medium we can infer how its particles will be affected. Here the mind runs with certainty along the line of thought which connects the phenomena, and from beginning to end finds no break in the chain. But when we endeavour to pass by a similar process from the phenomena of physics to those of thought, we meet a problem which transcends any conceivable expansion of the powers which we now possess. We may think over the subject again and again, but it eludes all intellectuid presentation. We stand at length face to face with the Incomprehensible. The territory of physics is wide, but it has its limits from which we look with vacant gaze into the region beyond. Whence come we; whither go we ? The question dies without an answer—without even an echo—upon the infinite shores of the Unknown. Let us follow matter to its utmost bounds; let us claim it in all its forms to experiment with and to speculate upon. Casting the term ‘ vital force’ from our vocabulary, let us reduce, if we can, the visible phenomena of life to mechanical attractions and repulsions. Having thus exhausted physics, and reached its very rim, the real mystery still looms beyond us. We have, in fact, made no step towards its solution. And thus it wiU ever loom— ever beyond the bourne of knowledge—compelling the philosophies of successive ages to confess that e are such stuff As dreams are made of, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep. lonjdon: printbd bt 6POTTIBWOODE AND CO., NEW-SXRPJJT 6QI-ABK AND rABLlAMENI SXUEEt