Preface Endless stream of nonscientific terms, ideas, leaps, etc. 1 Donne as epigraph, couplet about beauty, dreaming, desiring. Science has made startling progress, or, in physics, at least until the mid-70s. But he really means that all subtheories would be traceable to a first main theory, a First Cause of physical law.
Quantitative tests help determine the truth of qualitative theories.
For example, physicists thought they were about out of work until it was discovered that their theories applied to chemistry, and that new theories and equations were needed. In taking science as process, one is treating it like love or art. It may even peek into teleological questions. Why questions in physics nowadays get bogged down at about the level of quarks. In biology, structure seems to be answered by the combination of survival-evolution and the efficient causes of chemistry, i.e. physics.