to imagine that the laws he had discovered or proposed were actually relationships between the realities of Nature, or that he understood “gravity”. Modern science seems to take the other view; and in my opinion is falling into error. We may hanker after certainty; but I do not think you find it in science, which deals only in probabilities.
Once you commit yourself to the belief that the “Laws of Science” are relationships between the realities of Nature, the danger is that it may become an article of faith; in just the same way that at the trial of Galileo, to the Inquisition it was an article of faith that Scripture spoke the truth about the solar system, supported by Aristotle, and Copernicus told lies. And if you commit yourself to an article of faith, how do you retreat? And if it was only possible to formulate modern atomic and quantum theory by subscribing to the belief that science’s laws did relate to the realities of Nature, as I suspect it was, are you not committed to this as an article of faith? If nuclear physicists do think that we are all pre-programmed, that we all obey the theory of all things (discovered or undiscovered), are they not discrediting their own subject, which ought to be a delightful speculative science? It is not similar to the dream of the medieval scholastics that they could set the syllabus for mankind’s religious thoughts, and that men should tolerate their scholastic formulae indefinitely? Science is only partial truth; it is the truth that you discover when you investigate inorganic or organic matter, and leave out of account any spiritual content which it may have. Mountaineers talk about the spirit of the hills, and credit individual hills with having a personality of their own; not without reason, if you are caught in a storm. So I am inclined to think that even the most inorganic piece of rock may have a minimum spiritual element; an idea which is as old as human thought. Newton regarded his scientific knowledge as a grain of sand on the sea-shore, a drop in the ocean of nescience. Something of which the new Science of Chaos gives us a timely reminder. Is there anything to choose between a scholasticism of theology and a new scholasticism of science. Do not both represent an attempt to find certainty, where in fact there is none?
Of course one has to dedicate oneself to one’s profession to become any good at it. It is no good being an amateur; and it has always been said that nothing destroys a young man’s chances at the Bar more than a small private income, because it destroys the will to succeed. But there is no need for an over-dedication to it. Seeing things in true proportion is, in my opinion, the very highest intellectual achievement; and with an over-dedication to one’s chosen profession, I think one loses this ability to see things in proportion. So my conclusion is that neither in the pursuit of truth through science, nor in the pursuit of truth through reason is there any likelihood of discovering certainty. I do not doubt that absolute truth exists; I only doubt, as I have said before, that it has any meaning for us unless one person is trying to communicate it to another. And then one will see it through a glass darkly, because one will see it through a somewhat flawed consciousness.
I am glad to reach this conclusion, for if it were possible to find certainty in the material world or in the world of ideas, then we would all be tempted to be content with that certainty, whenever we found it. It is only if we can never find certainty, neither in the visible tangible world, nor in Plato’s beautiful world of ideas, that men and women are going to repeat the prayer, which I believe is Greek and pre-Christian,
“Oh God, in whom we live and move and have our being, who hast created us for thyself, so that we can find rest only in thee…”
So I would ask which is better? To have a logically complete philosophic system, or a way of life? To have a Theory of All Things, whether it is the latest inspiration of science or the antiquated inspiration of theology; or to be content with a philosophy of natural science which deals only with probabilities and is therefore rather unsatisfactory, and to find with the Creator of all things a companionship full of wonder, and praise?