Shane_Legg comments on Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions - Less Wrong
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I think Kelvin gets a bit of a raw deal in the way people often quote him: "[life etc.] is infinitely beyond the range of any scientific inquiry".
By cutting off the quote there it sounds like he is claiming that science will never be able to understand life. However, as you show above, he continues with, "... hitherto entered on." Thus, the sentence is making a claim about the power of science *up to the time of his writing* to understand life. This is a far more reasonable claim.