 Finally, Sturm’s method conceives of natural philosophy as a dynamic project in a state of constant transformation. To illustrate this point, Sturm compares philosophy as a whole to a ship: it is somewhat complete, though undergoing constant changes and mending. Both philosophy and a ship in use need to be fixed from time to time. Old, used-up parts (hypotheses in the case of philosophy, planks in the case of the ship) have to go to be replaced by new parts fit to allow both to advance (CPMS: 79). Philosophy is a never ending project. It can only approximate truth, getting closer and closer. No single natural philosopher has or could have exhausted and sufficiently explained the phenomena obtaining in nature. Hence, what needs to be done is to diligently assess and select what is good and true in other philosophers, adding what needs to be added. New phenomena are being discovered, new competing hypotheses are being developed to explain them. They too need to be assessed. What is reasonable remains. What is not able to stand up to the demands of a good hypothesis will have to go. The experimental study of nature proceeds, too. New instruments are being developed raising new challenges to old hypotheses. The vastness of nature, the manifold of its phenomena and the fact that causes cannot be observed but only conjectured add to the difficulty of the natural philosopher’s task. It would indeed be temerity and arrogance to think that one has explained all there needs to be explained in nature (CPMS: 67). Therefore, Sturm is making a case for the open-endedness of natural philosophy. Its goal is to know oneself, to know the world, and ultimately to know God (PE I: preface, art. 4.5; CPMS: 8). A goal that is not reachable within the life span of a human being, but a goal worth striving for.