"When we realize the important rôle played by space-time in our attempts to avoid a belief in absolute rotation, we can well understand that the doctrine of the relativity of all motion would have been absurd in Newton's day. ...any speaker prior to, say, the year 1900 could never have anticipated the discovery of space-time, for its sole justification arose from the negative experiments in optics and electrodynamics attempted at about that time. As for Newton, not only did he not know nothing of the non-mechanical negative experiments, but in addition, the equations of electrodynamics had not been discovered... even if he had conceived of space-time through some divine inspiration, he could never have utilised it for the purpose of establishing the relativity of all motion. His ignorance of non-Euclidean geometry would have rendered the task impossible. In fact, space-time, in the seventeenth century, would have been a hindrance, and the sole result of its premature introduction into science would have been to muddle everything up and render the discovery of Newton's law of gravitation well-nigh impossible. And this brings us to another point which is often true in physical science. Premature discoveries are apt to do more harm than good. ...had the astronomers of the seventeenth century possessed more perfect telescopes, had they recognized that the planets (Mercury, in particular) did not obey Kepler's laws rigorously, Newton's law might never have been discovered. At all events, its correctness would have been questioned seriously and mathematicians might have lost courage and doubted their ability to discover natural laws. Leverrier, for example, might have lacked the necessary assurance to carry out his lengthy calculations leading to the discovery of Neptune. In short, physical science proceeds by successive approximations, and too rapid jumps in the accretion of knowledge are liable to be disastrous."