He himself never wavered in the belief that it was necessary to come to terms with the achievements of natural science in the exploration of the physical world; more specifically, he never questioned the significance of the Newtonian world-picture or sought to minimize the importance of its implications for the future of systematic enquiry. At the same time, however, he was acutely aware of the disputes that had arisen at a philosophical level as to how much such enquiry could properly be said to encompass.
