Little Masterpieces of Science - The Skies and the Earth #252864

Anne Not only has man been winning knowl edge oi her in a thousand fields of exploration, ex periment and philosophy, but each of the myriad strands in her skein is traced as subtly bound to every other in ways unimaginable to the most piercing intellects of eras past. Some of the finest of Pope's verse was inspired in the garden he loved to pace, but how much more he would see around him there were he living now! He would find the whole scheme of heavens and earth implicated in that garden's beauty. Its soil telling of forces of storm and heat and chemic war, all at work, in time too extended for compu tation, to grind primeval rock to fertility. He would see the incomparable tints of every flower conferred by diverse elements aflame in an orb a celestial diameter away; elements akin to the fiower's own substance. Other indebtedness would be detected in the tribes oi* buzzing insects surrounding each blossom, insects, which, while sipping a flower, lend vital aid in continu ing its race. No hue or scent here without its use in enticement of this winged ministry 2 And were the poet's garden only various enough in its tenantry, he might count among his flowers many strictly conforming to the mould of their insect visitors. Wheresoever he might turn his eye in the whole realm of Nature he would see it fuller, richer; its every province more intimately interlaced than when he penned his eloquent Essay on Man.