A Rational and Humane Science 



the altering convexities of the lens and the eye- 

 ball, and in a hundred other ways, it manages 

 somehow to convey intelligence of Command, 

 Control, Power, of Pity, Love, Sympathy, and all 

 those myriad emotions which flit through the 

 human mind — an endless series — a perfect encyclo- 

 paedia. It is difficult even to imagine the eye 

 without this power of language. And what other 

 functions it may have it is not necessary to inquire. 

 Highly specialised though it is, it is already 

 obvious enough that to call it a Machine for 

 focussing rays of light is monstrously and ludi- 

 crously inadequate — even as it would be to call 

 the Heart (the very centre of emotion and life, 

 and the symbol of human love and courage) a 

 common Pump. 



Nature is an infinitude, and can at no point be 

 circumscribed by the human intellect. Nor ob- 

 viously is there any sense in taking one little portion 

 of Nature and isolating it from the rest, and then 

 describing it exhaustively as if it really were so iso- 

 lated. A thousand mechanicians will agree, as 

 I have said, in their description of a machine, 

 because in fact they will agree to view the machine 

 just in the one aspect of its particular action ; 

 but ask a thousand people to describe one and the 

 same face — or, better still, get a thousand por- 

 trait-painters, skilled in their art, to paint portraits 

 of the same face — and you know perfectly well 

 that all the likenesses will be different. And why 

 will they be different } Simply because every face, 

 however rude, has infinite sides, infinite aspects, 



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