“It is an assumption, which cannot be verified, that we shall not reach a point in our knowledge of nature beyond which the human intellect is unqualified to pass”
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The Idea of Progress: An Inquiry Into Its Origin and Growth (1921)
Context: Science has been advancing without interruption during the last three of four hundred years; every new discovery has led to new problems and new methods of solution, and opened up new fields for exploration. Hitherto men of science have not been compelled to halt, they have always found ways to advance further. But what assurance have we that they will not come up against impassable barriers?... Take biology or astronomy. How can we be sure that some day progress may not come to a dead pause, not because knowledge is exhausted, but because our resources for investigation are exhausted... It is an assumption, which cannot be verified, that we shall not reach a point in our knowledge of nature beyond which the human intellect is unqualified to pass.
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J. B. Bury 11
Irish historian and freethinker 1861–1927Related quotes
Collages (1964), p. 116
Context: Human beings can reach such desperate solitude that they may cross a boundary beyond which words cannot serve, and at such moments there is nothing left for them but to bark.
Thoughts and Glimpses (1916-17)
Variant: When we have passed beyond enjoyings, then we shall have Bliss. Desire was the helper; Desire is the bar.
Thoughts and Glimpses (1916-17)
Source: The Mirror of the Sea (1906), Ch. 7
In the 1661 translation by Thomas Salusbury: … such are the pure Mathematical sciences, to wit, Geometry and Arithmetick: in which Divine Wisdom knows infinite more propositions, because it knows them all; but I believe that the knowledge of those few comprehended by humane understanding, equalleth the divine, as to the certainty objectivè, for that it arriveth to comprehend the necessity thereof, than which there can be no greater certainty." p. 92 (from the Archimedes Project http://archimedes.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/cgi-bin/toc/toc.cgi?page=92;dir=galil_syste_065_en_1661;step=textonly)
In the original Italian: … tali sono le scienze matematiche pure, cioè la geometria e l’aritmetica, delle quali l’intelletto divino ne sa bene infinite proposizioni di piú, perché le sa tutte, ma di quelle poche intese dall’intelletto umano credo che la cognizione agguagli la divina nella certezza obiettiva, poiché arriva a comprenderne la necessità, sopra la quale non par che possa esser sicurezza maggiore." (from the copy at the Italian Wikisource).
Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632)
Kosmos (1845 - 1847)
Context: From the remotest nebulæ and from the revolving double stars, we have descended to the minutest organisms of animal creation, whether manifested in the depths of ocean or on the surface of our globe, and to the delicate vegetable germs which clothe the naked declivity of the ice-crowned mountain summit; and here we have been able to arrange these phenomena according to partially known laws; but other laws of a more mysterious nature rule the higher spheres of the organic world, in which is comprised the human species in all its varied conformation, its creative intellectual power, and the languages to which it has given existence. A physical delineation of nature terminates at the point where the sphere of intellect begins, and a new world of mind is opened to our view. It marks the limit, but does not pass it.
The Ethics of Belief (1877), The Limits Of Inference
“Until we know the assumptions in which we are drenched, we cannot know ourselves.”
