Prometheism of modern science

The explorers of substance, of energy, of the indefinitely small and of the indefinitely large, proceeding from discovery to discovery and from hypothesis to hypothesis, may well plunge into the mechanism of the physical world; they will undoubtedly meet with a variety of instructive insights into the structure of the physical categories, but in fact they will never reach the end of their trajectory; the foundations of existence have something indefinite to them and will not surrender themselves. Isis is "all that has been, all that is, and all that shall be"; and "no one hath ever lifted my veil." It is useless to try to do so, all the more so in that in this order of magnitude the useless coincides with the pernicious, as is shown by the myths of Prometheus, Icarus, the Titans, and Lucifer, and as is proven to excess by the experiences of the last two centuries.(1) [Roots of the Human Condition, p. 15].

(1) It should not be forgotten in this context that modern science operates with instruments - in the broadest sense - that in a traditional civilization could not exist; this means that there are kinds of knowledge that, strictly speaking, have no right to exist.

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