Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice book in great condition. Pages in excellent condition. Softcover. English. See images for condition.

About the book >.>.> A scientist is supposed to have a complete and thorough knowledge at first hand of some subjects and therefore is usually expected not to write on any topic of which he is not a master. This is regarded as a matter of noblesse oblige. For the present purpose I beg to renounce the noblesse if any and to be freed of the ensuing obligation. My excuse is as follows: We have inherited from our forefathers the keen longing for unified all-embracing knowledge. The very name given to the highest institutions of learning reminds us that from antiquity and throughout many centuries the universal aspect has been the only one to be given full credit. But the spread both in width and depth of the multifarious branches of knowledge during the last hundred odd years has confronted us with a queer dilemma. We feel clearly that we are only now begin- ning to acquire reliable material for welding together the sum total of all that is known into a whole; but on the other hand it has become next to impossible for a single mind fully to command more than a small specialized portion of it. I can see no other escape from this dilemma (lest our true aim be lost for ever) than that some of us should venture to embark on a synthesis of facts and theories albeit with second-hand and incomplete knowledge of some of them and at the risk of making fools of ourselves. (LL)