Publisher's Synopsis
From the PREFACE.
If it be true that "you are not all included between your hat and your boots," then possibly the residue or individual is not mortal after all. One surmises many things about this selfsame individual irrespective of biology, anatomy, or physics in general, and while a surmise is not a datum, it often evolves an experience which results in the acquisition of a fact. Good guessing is second cousin to an hypothesis, especially if based on a fair amount of actuality. Are we sure then that we are mortal? Furthermore, are the professors of exact science quite certain that the individual is annihilated when the body dies as such and goes back to the elements whence it came? The amount that we know is absurdly small compared with that yet unexplained, and the Riddle of the Universe is not so easy of solving as some of our professors may suppose. To be sure, a key is a good thing, and we have one already that unlocks many doors; but on ahead are more and still more closed avenues not yet explored.
The word science means to know, this term by its very nature implying the unknown; and the scientist is simply a human being conscientiously dealing with the negatives and positives of possible knowledge. He gropes about in the dark with his torch of a fact, getting glimmers here and there of new data or a law, like the pay streak in ore-bearing rock-that which is seen is but an indication of that which is hid, and only the individual who admits this is worthy the term of scientist. Should we discover the secret of secrets, the final or first principle-the hidden mainspring that once understood would reveal the Universe with all its facts-even then, man, being but human and a victim of time and space, must needs keep busy through eternity, adjusting and relating these infinite data one to the other. There is no danger of a slump in the business of science or the scientific man, for that in which he lives, moves, and has his being is so much bigger than himself that he can never retire from business while time lasts. The living environment in which each individual finds himself submerged forms a sargasso of specialization that compels him to desperately flounder until a grasp on unity is attained. In physics, with its hypothetical atom, he is lost and well-nigh drowned. Not until he discovers a dominant unit guiding and directing its subjects of lesser units does the cosmic balance of things present itself. The word relationship is a misnomer unless it really expresses its true meaning. Things chaotically bumping together without let or hindrance, sympathy or mutual understanding, are not in a true sense related. A universe of accidents like this would be without coordination, without harmony, without inherent unifying law. We know of no such universe....
