#38
"Thought is crude, matter unimaginably subtle. Words are few and can only be arranged in certain conventionally fixed ways; the counterpoint of unique events is infinitely wide and their succession indefinitely long. That the purified language of science, or even the richer purified language of literature should ever be adequate to the givenness of the world and of our experience is, in the very nature of things, impossible. Cheerfully accepting the fact, let us advance together, men of letters and men of science, further and further into the ever-expanding regions of the unknown."
Aldus Huxley, Literature and Science, 1963
Huxley talks of the writer and the use of words to describe experience. His acknowledgment of the necessity of both to provide a more complete description of reality is beautifully put.
My standpoint is a position of comparing art and science. Literature is simply one part or, subdivision of art. So the limitations of words is not so worrying. In fact art might adequate ape scientific equipment, or experiments. In fact what is to stop one declaring a piece of science art.
In any case it seems Huxley already recognised the beauty and creativity of science and scientists. Using literature as a tool of comparison is quite useful, art in its entirety is so nebulous that it can be hard to define and reason with.