Page:Nature and Life (1934).pdf/65

 universe which we call the paving stone. Modern physical science is the issue of a co-ordinated effort, sustained for more than three centuries, to understand those activities of Nature by reason of which the transitions of sense-perception occur.

Two conclusions are now abundantly clear. One is that sense-perception omits any discrimination of the fundamental activities within Nature. For example, consider the difference between the paving stone as perceived visually, or by falling upon it, and the molecular activities of the paving stone as desctibed by the physicist. The second conclusion is the failure of science to endow its formulae for activity with any meaning. The divergence of the formulae about Nature from the appearance of Nature has sobbed the formulae of any explanatory chatacter. It has even robbed us of reason for believing that the past gives any ground for expectation of the future.