Classical physics, the author goes on to show, held that it was
possible to gain a real insight into the laws of the universe, because
in principle an infinite number of such discrete observations would
enable us to fill in the gaps sufficiently to allow us to determine the
system of the physical world. Against this assumption modern physics
must hold the view that an infinite number of observations cannot in
any case be carried out in practice, and that nothing compels us to
assume that even this would suffice to furnish us with the means for a
complete determination, which alone would allow us to speak of 'law' in
nature. 'This is the direction in which modern physics has led us
without really intending it.'

What we have previously said will make it clear enough that in these
words of a modern physicist we meet once more the two fundamentals of
Hume's philosophy. It is just as obvious, however, that the very
principle thus re-affirmed at the latest stage of modern physical
science was already firmly established by Hooke, when he sought to
prove to his contemporaries the unreality of human ideas.

Let us recall Hooke's motives and results. The human reason discovers
that certain law-abiding forms of thought dwell within itself; these
are the rules of mathematical thinking. The eye informs the reason that
the same kind of law and order is present also in the outer world. The
mind can think point and line; the eye reports that the same forms
exist in nature outside. (Hooke could just as well have taken as his
examples the apex and edge of a crystal.) The reason mistrusts the eye,
however, and with the help of the microscope 'improves' on it. What
hitherto had been taken for a compact, regulated whole now collapses
into a heap of unordered parts; behind the illusion of law a finer
observation detects the reality of chaos!