The "Faust" of Goethe, tired of the barren round of earthly knowledge,
calls magic to his aid. He desires, first, to see the spirit of the
Macrocosmos, but his heart fails him before he ventures that tremendous
experiment, and he summons before him, instead, the spirit of his own
race. There he feels himself at home. The stream of life and the storm
of action, the everlasting ocean of existence, the web and the woof,
and the roaring loom of Time,--he gazes upon them all, and in passionate
exultation claims fellowship with the awful thing before him. But the
majestic vision fades, and a voice comes to him,--"Thou art fellow with
the spirits which thy mind can grasp, not with me."
Had Mr. Buckle tried to follow his principles into detail, it might have
fared no better with him than with "Faust."
What are the conditions of a science? and when may any subject be said
to enter the scientific stage? I suppose when the facts begin to resolve
themselves into groups; when phenomena are no longer isolated
experiences, but appear in connection and order; when, after certain
antecedents, certain consequences are uniformly seen to follow; when
facts enough have been collected to furnish a basis for conjectural
explanation; and when conjectures have so far ceased to be utterly vague
that it is possible in some degree to foresee the future by the help of
them.
Pages:
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30