It is one thing for the human mind to extract from the phenomena of nature the laws which it has itself put into them; it may be a far harder thing to extract laws over which it has no control. It is even possible that laws which have not their origin in the mind may be irrational, and we can never succeed in formulating them.


Space, Time, and Gravitation (1920), ch. 12

Arthur Eddington Quotes

It is one thing for the human mind to extract from the phenomena of nature the laws which it has itself put into them; it may be a far harder thing...

It is one thing for the human mind to extract from the phenomena of nature the laws which it has itself put into them; it may be a far harder thing...

It is one thing for the human mind to extract from the phenomena of nature the laws which it has itself put into them; it may be a far harder thing...

It is one thing for the human mind to extract from the phenomena of nature the laws which it has itself put into them; it may be a far harder thing...