Art and Scientific Thought: Historical Studies Towards a Modern Revision of Their Antagonism

Foreword by Walter de laM are every detail. Thaty he most patiently reiterated, is not the concern of Science. With these talks in view, he refers to hisS ocratic questioner. But then! Socrates was not only heretical but dangerous in the eyes of his enemies on account of a wisdom to which they were blind (as may be certain devotees either of the arts or of the sciences in respect to the main thesis of this book) .A nd no one but a gentleman nonpareil could have been the subject of the Phaedo. His method indeed was to reveal how hazy was the knowledge and how vague were the sentiments of those whom he catechised, while being himself perfectly assured that he knew the right answers, which he thereupon elucidated. My own feeble and precarious situation was precisely the reverse of this. And especially, needless to say, in respect to theM use called Urania. Like any other novice (and this book is by no means intended solely for the expert) I could lapse into a momentary daydream over photographs of the nebulae of Andromeda or of Coma Berenices; could even hazard a mere guess whether its myriads of suns in their assembly suggested the spiral or the concentric; could intelligently enquire whether any such spiral was in process of winding up or of unwinding; and could faintly realise the difficulty occasioned by the varying stellar distances in unimaginable light years for any rapt student considering them on earth. But Httle further. I had no objection, rather the reverse, to abiding the crucial questions, mathematical, metaphysical, thus involved, as too Dr. Johnson magnanimously abided my own litde simplicities, though in a different sense! But here there is less reason even for modesty; much more for shame and reproof. And it is here that we approach one of the paramount intentions of this book. Nowadays there is little excuse for staying ignorant, though there(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)