Continuity 71 



All intellectual processes are based on 

 abstraction, that is on concentrated 

 attention directed to a selected portion, 

 with limitation of scope, and elimination 

 of whatever may be regarded as unessen- 

 tial or irrelevant. For instance, History 

 must ignore a great multitude of facts 

 in order to treat any intelligently: it 

 selects. So does Art; and that is why a 

 drawing is clearer than reality. Science 

 makes a diagram of reality, displaying the 

 works, like a skeleton clock. Anatomists 

 dissect out the nervous system, the blood- 

 vessels, and the muscles, and depict them 

 separately, there must be discrimin- 

 ation for intellectual grasp, but in life 

 they are all merged and co-operating 

 together; they do not really work separ- 

 ately, though they may be studied separ- 

 ately. A scalpel discriminates: a dagger 

 or a bullet crashes through everything. 

 That is life, or rather death. The laws 

 of nature are a diagrammatic frame- 

 work, analysed or abstracted out of the 

 full comprehensiveness of reality. 



Hence it is that Science has no au- 



