Quote#World
Natural law is not applicable to the unseen world behind the symbols,…
Quote byArthur Eddington · 1882–1944
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Science and the Unseen World (1929).
English (original)
Natural law is not applicable to the unseen world behind the symbols, because it is unadapted to anything except symbols, and its perfection is a perfection of symbolic linkage. You cannot apply such a scheme to the parts of our personality which are not measurable by symbols any more than you can extract the square root of a sonnet.
— Arthur Eddington
More from Arthur Eddington
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At terrestrial temperatures matter has complex properties which are likely to prove most difficult to unravel; but it is reasonable to hope that in the not too distant future we shall be competent to understand so simple a thing as a star.
The present revolution of scientific thought follows in natural sequence on the great revolutions at earlier epochs in the history of science
These earlier revolutions are still a source of perplexity in childhood, which we soon outgrow; and a time will come when Einstein's amazing revelations have likewise sunk into the commonplaces of educated thought.
Physics has in the main contented itself with studying the abridged edition of the book of nature.
A star is drawing on some vast reservoir of energy by means unknown to us. This reservoir can scarcely be other than the sub-atomic energy which, it is known, exists abundantly in all matter; we sometimes dream that man will one day learn …