Scientific Knowledge, pp. 518-519

Opening Remarks
Mental knowledge has accumulated much information about the material constituents and outer processes but it lacks the wisdom and the all-comprehensive vision of Reality that is the hallmark of true Knowledge. It uses this information and surface understanding for its egoistic purposes.

For my use
I have caught her intricate processes, none is left:
Her huge machinery is in my hands;
I have seized the cosmic energies for my use.

Our mind seizes upon the intricate processes of material Nature by studying her machinery. It then uses the cosmic energies at the service of the ego and desires.

I have pored
I have pored on her infinitesimal elements
And her invisible atoms have unmasked:
All Matter is a book I have perused;
Only some pages now are left to read.

Science has made a detailed and careful study of the minutest elements of material objects. It has probed the invisible atoms studying Matter as one reads a book. Only some pages of the book of Matter are now left to read, she believes.

I have seen
I have seen the ways of life, the paths of mind;
I have studied the methods of the ant and ape
And the behaviour learned of man and worm.

Science has seen and studied the ways of life through biology and the brain circuits for the mind to operate. It has studied the life of ant and ape and the behaviour of man and worm.

Nothing is known
If God is at work, his secrets I have found.
But still the Cause of things is left in doubt,
Their truth flees from pursuit into a void;
When all has been explained nothing is known.

Yet its knowledge is shadowed with a giant ignorance. Science believes it knows the secrets of God’s world but still the Cause of things is not understood. The truth of things escapes into a void and when all has been explained nothing really is known.

I know not
What chose the process, whence the Power sprang
I know not and perhaps shall never know.

But what chose the process and when and where from the Power sprang that Science cannot know and perhaps shall never know.

A mystery
A mystery is this mighty Nature’s birth;
A mystery is the elusive stream of mind,
A mystery the protean freak of life.

It is a mystery how this mighty Nature is born. It is an elusive mystery how this stream of thoughts and feelings moves the mind. It is a mystery how this ever changing and evolving life has appeared.

Chance leaps to contradict
What I have learned, Chance leaps to contradict;
What I have built is seized and torn by Fate.

Random chance events contradict what Science has learned. What it has built is seized and taken away by Fate.

Driven upon paths
I can foresee the acts of Matter’s force,
But not the march of the destiny of man:
He is driven upon paths he did not choose,
He falls trampled underneath the rolling wheels.

Science can foresee the results of the workings of material force. But it cannot see the march of human destiny. Man is driven upon the paths he did not chose and falls and is trampled below the wheels of fate.

All is a speculation
My great philosophies are a reasoned guess;
The mystic heavens that claim the human soul
Are a charlatanism of the imagining brain:
All is a speculation or a dream.

Even the great philosophies of Science are a reasoned guess. The mystic heavens that claim the human soul are, to Science, mere charlatanism and imaginations of the brain. All is to it a speculation and a dream.

In the end
In the end the world itself becomes a doubt:
The infinitesimal’s jest mocks mass and shape,
A laugh peals from the infinite’s finite mask.

In the end the world itself remains a doubt. It is a mystery how the infinitesimal particles create mass and shape. The infinite laughs at our knowledge from behind the finite forms that mask Reality.

Closing Remarks
In the end all our scientific knowledge is merely a science of appearances.