170 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 



are poets, of saying much about it. But we listen 

 with gladness, with awe, sometimes, perhaps, 

 with fear, surely always with wonder. The 

 grandeur of the star-strewn sky, the mystery of 

 the mountains, the sea eternally new, the way of 

 the eagle in the air, the meanest flower that blows 

 somewhere, sometime, somehow, every one con- 

 fesses with emotion, "This is too wonderful for 

 me." When we consider the abundance of 

 power in the world, the immensities, the intri- 

 cacy and vitality of everything, the wealth of 

 sentient life, the order that persists amid inces- 

 sant change, the vibrating web of inter-relations, 

 the thousand and one fitnesses, the evolutionary 

 progress that is like "the unity of an onward 

 advancing melody," and the beauty that is 

 through and through, we are convinced that 

 our wonder is reasonable. 



As we come to know Nature better, we find 

 that everything is equally wonderful if we know 

 enough about it, for, as Meredith says, with his 

 wonted insight: "You of any well that springs, 

 may unfold the heaven of things." As Whitman 

 says 



"A leaf of grass is no less than the journey- 

 work of the stars, 



And the ant is equally perfect, and the grain 

 of sand, and the egg of the wren, 



