The Wonder of the World 41 



proportionately analytic. Science, like a child 

 pulling a flower to bits, is apt to dissect more than 

 it reconstructs, and to lose in its analysis the vision 

 of unity and harmony which the artist has ever 

 before his eyes. But if the artist has patience, he 

 will often find that science restores the unity with 

 more meaning in it than before. 



Thus, too, we sympathize with the recoil from 

 "a botany which teaches that there is no such 

 thing as a flower," from "a biology which is all 

 necrology." But have patience and you will find 

 that the botanist brings the Dryad back into the 

 tree, and that the necrologist makes the dry bones 

 live. 



We know how Wordsworth recoiled from irrel- 

 evant irreverent science. He spoke of 



"One, all eyes 



Philosooher! a fingering slave, 

 One that would peep and botanise 

 Upon his mother's grave." 



Yet in the preface to "This Lawn a Carpet all 

 Alive," Wordsworth wrote: "Some are of the 

 opinion that the habit of analysing, decomposing, 

 and anatomising is inevitably unfavourable to the 

 perception of beauty." But "The beauty in form 

 of a plant or an animal is not made less, but more, 

 apparent as a whole by more accurate insight into 

 its constituent properties and powers." 



