Page:ScienceAndHypothesis1905.djvu/24

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INTRODUCTION.

them. The bluntness of our unaided sensual perceptions, which are the source in part of the intuitions of the race, is well brought out in this connection by M. Poincaré. Is there real contradiction? Harmony usually proves to be recovered by shifting our attitude to the phenomena. All experience leads us to interpret the totality of things as a consistent cosmos—undergoing evolution, the naturalists will say—in the large-scale workings of which we are interested spectators and explorers, while of the inner relations and ramifications we only apprehend dim glimpses. When our formulation of experience is imperfect or even paradoxical, we learn to attribute the fault to our point of view, and to expect that future adaptation will put it right. But Truth resides in a deep well, and we shall never get to the bottom. Only, while deriving enjoyment and insight from M. Poincaré's Socratic exposition of the limitations of the human outlook on the universe, let us beware of counting limitation as imperfection, and drifting into an inadequate conception of the wonderful fabric of human knowledge.

J. LARMOR.