become to us a language incessantly suggestive of the
deepest topics of thought.

This explains his dislike to science, as he understood the word, and his
denunciations of the 'world.' The man of science is one who cuts up
nature into fragments, and not only neglects their possible significance
for our higher feelings, but refrains on principle from taking it into
account. The primrose suggests to him some new device in classification,
and he would be worried by the suggestion of any spiritual significance
as an annoying distraction. Viewing all objects 'in disconnection, dead
and spiritless,' we are thus really waging

An impious warfare with the very life
Of our own souls.

We are putting the letter in place of the spirit, and dealing with
nature as a mere grammarian deals with a poem. When we have learnt to
associate every object with some lesson

Of human suffering or of human joy;

when we have thus obtained the 'glorious habit,'

By which sense is made
Subservient still to moral purposes,
Auxiliar to divine;

the 'dull eye' of science will light up; for, in observing natural
processes, it will carry with it an incessant reference to the spiritual
processes to which they are allied. Science, in short, requires to be
brought into intimate connection with morality and religion. If we are
forced for our immediate purpose to pursue truth for itself, regardless
of consequences, we must remember all the more carefully that truth is a
whole, and that fragmentary bits of knowledge become valuable as they
are incorporated into a general system. The tendency of modern times to
specialism brings with it a characteristic danger. It requires to be
supplemented by a correlative process of integration. We must study
details to increase our knowledge; we must accustom ourselves to look at
the detail in the light of the general principles in order to make it
fruitful.

The influence of that world which 'is too much with us late and soon' is
of the same kind. The man of science loves barren facts for their own
sake. The man of the world becomes devoted to some petty pursuit without
reference to ultimate ends. He becomes a slave to money, or power, or
praise, without caring for their effect upon his moral character. As
social organisation becomes more complete, the social unit becomes a
mere fragment instead of being a complete whole in himself. Man becomes

The senseless member of a vast