Limitations

"There is much talk today of expanding the scientific method to make it applicable to broader, more humane considerations. By directing this method to new problems, the scientific enterprise can indeed, within limits, be expanded, but not the scientific method itself. For it is precisely from the narrowness of that method that its power derives, so that to urge its expansion is like recommending that a dentist's drill be broadened so it can churn a bit of butter on the side."

--Huston Smith, Forgotten Truth: The Primordial Tradition (1976)

I think about this idea a lot--the power and necessity of limitations, boundaries. I see much of human growth and maturation as a discovering of and coming to terms with limits. The body has its limits, the ego has its limits, and it seems that everyone's limits are different. Part of the discovery is realizing that what was once perceived as a limit--for example, in the body's capabilities--can be expanded beyond one's previous conceptions. The same applies to the ego, the personality, and its capabilities. Part of the coming to terms, however, is recognizing the importance of limits, as Smith discusses above with regard to the scientific method. He suggests that science as a method for obtaining knowledge is limited, and thus should not be applied indiscriminately to all fields of knowledge. But the power of the method is inseparable from its limitations, and I believe this principle applies to many areas of human experience. Furthermore, just as the dentist does not try to accomplish everything with one tool whose capabilities are diffuse but instead works with a range of powerful and limited tools.