The scientific method is one and the same in all branches, and that method is the method of all logically trained minds. In this respect the great cl… - Karl Pearson

What relation has the life of the individual to the life of the universe? ...The former is absolutely subordinate, inconceivably infinitesimal compared with the latter. The becoming of the latter bears not the slightest apparent reference to the becoming of the former. ...The one seems finite, limited, temporal, the other by comparison infinite, boundless, eternal. This disparity has forced itself upon the attention of man ever since his first childlike attempts at thought.

That it does not pay to gamble has been the oft repeated theme of the moralist, and has been demonstrated with much brave show of symbols by mathematicians from Lagrange to De Morgan and onwards.

The "Eternal Why" begins to haunt his mind; "Why... am I here?" he asks. What relation do I, a part, bear to the whole—the sum of all things material and spiritual? What connection has the finite with the infinite? the temporal with the eternal?