How To Be An Agnostic

thought ridiculous. But these expressions of wonder do, none-
theless, convey real insight about the insects, the experience of
studying them, and their signifi cance in the world at large. One
may ask why the fl y has such ‘infi nite workmanship about his
body’? The strictly scientifi c answer would incorporate details
like the properties of chitin, the material from which insects’

Illus. 2.3: The ‘burnished and resplendent’ fl y, as drawn by Robert Hooke,
in 1667.