COMPLEX SIMPLICITY 39 



the skilled weaver nothing can be simpler or more 

 intelligible. 



There are hundreds of threads crossing and re- 

 crossing each other in apparently hopeless confusion. 

 There are several rows of little shuttles, each fitted 

 with differently coloured silk. There are slender 

 rods and cranks, and over all this mixture of brass, 

 steel, strings, silks, and shuttles, there is a string of 

 cards perforated with circular holes, each turning 

 over as the shuttles dart from one side of the machine 

 to the other. 



If these parts be separated, they seem to have no 

 connection with each other. A person who did not 

 understand the principles of the machine might think 

 that you were joking if you showed him the string of 

 perforated cards and a patterned ribbon, and told 

 him that the holes on the cards constituted the 

 original pattern, which was reproduced in a different 

 form on the silk, and that a skilled weaver can read 

 off one from the other as a linguist can read English 

 into Greek, or vice versd. Yet all these multitudi- 

 nous details are arranged by one master mind, and 

 all work harmoniously together to one single end. 



So it is with the horse's hoof. 



That the three kinds of horn of which the external 

 hoof is constructed should be formed so as to act 

 in concert with the infinitely more elaborate internal 



