Science: Devil-Science, Scripture-Poetry

For three quarters of a century the distinguished British scientific weekly, Nature, has carried under its title the following lines by William Wordsworth:

To the solid ground Of nature trusts the Mind that builds for aye.

In the most recent issue of Nature to reach the U.S., a fellow of the Royal Society, Dr. Vincent B. Wigglesworth, at long last pointed out that Wordsworth was a strange bedfellow for scientists’ “self-esteem.” In evidence, Dr. Wigglesworth cited other Wordsworthian lines:

Physician art thou?—one, all eyes,

Philosopher! a fingering slave,

One that would peep and botanize

Upon his mother’s grave?

. . . go demand

Of mighty Nature, if ’twas ever meant

That we should pry far off yet be unraised; That we should pore, and dwindle as we pore,

Viewing all objects unremittingly In disconnection dead and spiritless; And still dividing, and dividing still, Break down all grandeur. . . .