The Secret of Life was infinitely beyond the reach of science! Not just a little beyond, mind you, but infinitely beyond!
But Kelvin (in your quote) qualified it with ”… hitherto entered on”. Whether or not “infinitely” is fitting, doesn’t this imply that Kelvin did not think that future scientific inquiry could not succeed?
(b) “Its power of directing the motions of moving particles, in the demonstrated daily miracle of our human free-will, and in the growth of generation after generation of plants from a single seed, are infinitely different from any possible result of the fortuitous concurrence of atoms”
Nitpick:
But Kelvin (in your quote) qualified it with ”… hitherto entered on”. Whether or not “infinitely” is fitting, doesn’t this imply that Kelvin did not think that future scientific inquiry could not succeed?
(a) not when you say “infinitely”
(b) “Its power of directing the motions of moving particles, in the demonstrated daily miracle of our human free-will, and in the growth of generation after generation of plants from a single seed, are infinitely different from any possible result of the fortuitous concurrence of atoms”
Kelvin was smart enough to hedge his bets?