The limitations of science / by J. W. N. Sullivan.

  • Sullivan, J. W. N. (John William Navin), 1886-1937.
Date:
[1938]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The limitations of science / by J. W. N. Sullivan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    on occasion, to protrude from it as a sort of effluvium all round it. The mind of God, in particular, is to be regarded as infinitely extended throughout space and time. But all these ideas may be regarded as more philosophical than scientific. Their influence in forming the scientific outlook was only indirect, and it was not permanent. §3 We have seen that, so far, the developing scientific out¬ look owed its main features to the predilections of the mathematician. And the main assumption of the philosophy accompanying this scientific achievement is that the real may be identified with the quantitative. Compared with the fully developed modem scientific outlook, we see that these early men of science were too prone to legislate for the universe on the basis of certain a priori assumptions— assumptions which were really expressions of their dominat¬ ing mathematical predilections. The modern outlook differs from theirs by the more tentative character of its assump¬ tions. Although mathematics has hitherto proved itself by far the most powerful tool for the scientific investigation of nature, it is no longer an article of belief that nature is necessarily mathematical. We now realize that mathe¬ matical deductions, however rigorous, must always be checked by experiment. Even Galileo, who strikes us as the most modern of all these early workers, tells us that often he did not consider experimental checks on his mathe¬ matical reasoning to be necessary, and undertook the experiments solely in order to convince his opponents. The first perfect fusion of the mathematical with the empirical outlook was accomplished by Isaac Newton. Newton was not the first, of course, to realize the need of experiment. All his predecessors had realized this to some extent, and such men as Gilbert, Harvey, Boyle, were