If There Is Magic On This Planet,

In The End, Science As We Know It Has Two Basic Types Of Practitioners. One Is The Educated Man Who Still Has A Controlled Sense Of Wonder Before The Universal Mystery, Whether It Hides In A Snail's Eye Or Within The Light That Impinges On That Delicate Organ. The Second Kind Of Observer Is The Extreme Reductionist Who Is So Busy Stripping Things Apart That The Tremendous Mystery Has Been Reduced To A Trifle, To Intangibles Not Worth Troubling One's Head About.

Each Man Deciphers From The Ancient Alphabets Of Nature Only Those Secrets That His Own Deeps Possess The Power To Endow With Meaning.

We Are Rag Dolls Made Out Of Many Ages And Skins, Changelings Who Have Slept In Wood Nests, And Hissed In The Uncouth Guise Of Waddling Amphibians. We Have Played Such Roles For Infinitely Longer Ages Than We Have Been Human. Our Identity Is A Dream. We Are Process, Not Reality.

Of All The Unexpected Qualities Of An Unexpected Universe, The Sheer Organizing Power Of Animal And Plant Metabolism Is One Of The Most Remarkable. . . . Where It Reaches Its Highest Development, In The Human Mind, We Forget It Completely. . . . So Important Does Nature Regard This Unseen Combustion . . . That A Starving Man's Brain Will Be Protected To The Last While His Body Is Steadily Consumed.

[on Common Water.] Its Substance Reaches Everywhere; It Touches The Past And Prepares The Future; It Moves Under The Poles And Wanders Thinly In The Heights Of Air. It Can Assume Forms Of Exquisite Perfection In A Snowflake, Or Strip The Living To A Single Shining Bone Cast Up By The Sea.