498 JOHN DUNCAN, WEAVER AND BOTANIST. 



study of science : " the wonders o' the secrets o' nature are 

 such as nae man wu'd believe till he sees them wrocht 

 oot ! " that is, it is only intimate scientific knowledge 

 of the operations of nature that reveals their incredible 

 wonderfulness, a truth echoed by all deep investigators. 

 This humble, unlettered weaver did obtain, in no mean 

 degree, some of those far-reaching glimpses into the 

 problems of the universe with which Nature always rewards 

 her deeper students, and by which she enables them to 

 "see into the life of things," and to feel 



" A presence that disturbs them with the joy 

 Of elevated thoughts." 



Then, like all true students of Nature, after all his life- 

 long enthusiastic searchings after truth, he came at the end 

 to the deep-felt conviction of how little he knew ; all that 

 he had achieved only enabling him to realise how much 

 remained unknown, and how, like the best, he had only 

 been picking up a few pebbles on the shore of the bound- 

 less ocean. In speaking to James Black, a year or two 

 before his death, of the pleasures of knowledge, of which 

 Botany had given him such exquisite taste, he said that 

 his eyes were now beginning to open up to new fields of 

 investigation into plant-life plants living and growing on 

 plants in myriads ! He had gathered many a plant, and 

 was only then beginning to perceive that, instead of having 

 one plant in his hand, as he had so long thought, he had a 

 whole bundle ! He now began, he said, to see and under- 

 stand a new great field of inquiry, and God alone knew 

 where it all ended ; he only saw it was big. That was a true 

 glimpse of the Great Vision of knowledge and existence. 

 Then, filled with gratitude for the past and this new insight 



