Religion and Science
5. Religion and Science
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this, in truth, was all we knew about it. It is
only now, in retrospect, that we can see how
very significant a step this was. An entity had
been admitted into physics of which we knew
nothing but its mathematical structure.
Since then other entities have been admitted
on the same terms, and it is found that they
play precisely the same role in the formation
of scientific theories as do the old entities. It
has become evident that, so far as the science
of physics is concerned, we do not require to
know the nature of the entities we discuss, but
only their mathematical structure. And, in
truth, that is all we do know. It is now
realized that this is all the scientific
knowledge we have even of the familiar
Newtonian entities. Our persuasion that we
knew them in some exceptionally intimate
manner was an illusion.
With this realization it is no long step to
Eddington’s position that a knowledge of
mathematical structure is the only knowledge
that the science of physics can give us.
