Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1871-11-25
ParadoxtenI science.

went 20 an afternoon tea at q house where
was sure to meet some nice people. And among
the first met was old friend, who had been
hearing some lectures on botany at the kensing-
ton museum, and had been delighted with them.
everything, and she was quite right in being de-
lighted; besides that, rs l found by her account
OF them, the lectures were really interesting and
Pleasantly given. She had expected botany to
be dull; and had not found it So and chad learned
80 much.' On hearing this, proceeded natu-
rally TO inquire what; for my idea of her was that
before she went to the lectures at all she had
known more botany than she was likely to learn
by them SO she told me that she had learned,
hrst OF all, that there were seven sorts of
leaves" Now have always a great suspicion OF
the number seven; because, when 1 wrote the
"Seven Lamps of Architecture" il required all
the ingenuity i was master of TO prevent them
from becoming eight, or even nine, ON my hands.
30 thought I'd myself that IL would be very
charming If there were only seven sortsof leaves;
but that, perhaps, il one looked the woods and
forests of the world carefully through, IL was
just possible that one might discover many
eight sorts; and then where would my friends
new knowledge Of botany be? So | said: ''That
was very pretty; but what more ?" Then my
fTlend told me that she had no idea before that
petals were leaves. On which thought to my
self that it would not have been any great harm
10 her If she had remained undsr her old impress
sion that petals were petals. But said: THAT
was very pretty, too; and what more ?'' So then
my friend told me that the lecturer said 80 the
object of his lectures would be entirely accom-
plshed if he could convince his hearers that there
was no such thing as a flower" Now i'm that
sentence you have the most perfect and admira-
BILE summary given you of the general temper
and purposes OF modern science. 1t gives lee
lures on botany, of which the object Is to show
that there is no such thing a flower; on
humanity, to show that there is no such thing as
a man, and ON theology, to show that there is no
such thing as God. No such thing as a man,
but only a mechanism; no such thing as a God,
but only series Of forces. The two faiths are
essentially one; IL you feel yourself to be only
machine, constructed to be a egulator of minor
at ny reh
science on your Holborn viaduct, and necessa-
rily recognize only major machinery a. regu-
latiDg you. i must explain the real meaning to
you, however, OF that saying of the botanical
lecturer, for il has a wide bearing. Some fifty
the parts of plants had kind Of common nature,
and would change into each other. Now this
was a true discovery, and a notable ONE and you
will find that. In fact, all plants are composed
essentially of two parasitic leaf iand root-one
loving the light, the other darkness; one liking
grow for the most part up, the other for the most
part down; and each having faculties and pur-
poses of its own. Bufthe pure one, which loves
the light, has, above all things, the purpose of
being married to another leaf, and having child
leaves, and children's childrenof leaves, to make
the earth fair forever. And when the leaves
marry they put on wedding-robes, and are more
glorious than Solomon in all his glory; and they
have feasts of honey and we call them ssfowersb
In certain sense, therefore, you see the botani-
cal lecturer was quite right. There are no such
things as fiOwers-there are only leaves Nav
further than this, there may be dignity in the
less happy but unwithering leaf, which is, in
some sort, better than the brief lily of its bloom
which the great poets always knew well-Chau-
Ger before Goethe, and the writer of the first
psalm before Chaucer. The botanical lecturer
Was, in deeper sense than he knew, right