The avowed purpose of the exact sciences is to establish complete intellectual control over experience in terms of precise rules which can be formally set out and empirically tested. Could that ideal be fully achieved, all truth and all error could henceforth be ascribed to an exact theory of the universe, while we who accept this theory would be relieved of any occasion for exercising our personal judgement. We should only have to follow the rules faithfully. Classical mechanics approaches this ideal so closely that it is often thought to have achieved it. But this leaves out of account the element of personal judgement involved in applying the formulae of mechanics to the facts of experience. The purpose of the exact sciences is to

The avowed purpose of the exact sciences is to establish complete intellectual control over experience in terms of precise rules which can be formally set out and empirically tested. Could that ideal be fully achieved, all truth and all error could henceforth be ascribed to an exact theory of the universe, while we who accept this theory would be relieved of any occasion for exercising our personal judgement. We should only have to follow the rules faithfully. Classical mechanics approaches this ideal so closely that it is often thought to have achieved it. But this leaves out of account the element of personal judgement involved in applying the formulae of mechanics to the facts of experience. The purpose of the exact sciences is to