The History of Things 89 



You open the bag and see within it another bag, 

 of a different quahty of silk, but very fine. Open 

 that, and lo! a third, which contains a fourth, 

 which contains a fifth, which contains a sixth, 

 which contains a seventh bag, which contains the 

 strongest, roughest, hardest vessel of Chinese clay 

 that you ever beheld. Yet it is not only curious 

 but precious; it may be more than a thousand 

 years old." 



Historical natural science has to do with a sim- 

 ilar process of unwrapping — it removes one silken 

 envelope after another, trying to unravel the pat- 

 tern and count the threads — and what is finally 

 revealed, though it seem to the careless but as hard 

 clay, is something — if we may say something — so 

 very old, so very wonderful, that science can give 

 no name to it. 



