168 life
to produce that last sense of unification—a union of the knower with the
known.
In characterizing what might be meant by the unity of nature, Ian Hacking
considers the formula: “one world, one reality, one truth.”^12 But he dismisses
that formula because it misses a crucial feature of the scientific life that he
observes in James Clerk Maxwell, and which is certainly discernible in earlier
scientists. It leaves out a feeling of awe, wonder, and respect. Maxwell spoke
of a duty to impress on our minds “the extent, the order and the unity of the
universe.” And this included the appreciation of a harmony that was worthy
of praise. The aesthetic graduated into the reverential, as it had done for Kepler
two-hundred-and-fifty years before.^13
In seventeenth-century natural philosophy we find well known metaphors
for nature that were attractive because they did convey a sense of awe, as well
as granting a degree of autonomy to empirical investigation. These were meta-
phors that, in their circulation, reinforced nature’s unity. In many cases, the
metaphors mediated directly between empirical and religious concerns. They
could also be read in many different ways. The metaphor of nature as a book
is perhaps the perfect example. In Kepler, the language of each of God’s two
books is said to be accommodated to the human intellect by their divine au-
thor.^14 For Francis Bacon, an appeal to the two books underscored a sense of
obligation to study the book of God’s works just as there was a duty to study
the book of God’s words.^15 For Galileo, the book of God’s words had meanings
accessible to the vulgar, but also deeper meanings to which only the study of
the book of nature gave access.^16 For Isaac Newton, how one book was read
had implications for the reading of the other: a single definitive meaning for
each biblical text was the equivalent of a definitive account of each natural
phenomenon.^17 And the attraction, in every case, was that one could always
argue that since the two booksdidhave the same author there could never be
a real contradiction between them when both were properly understood.
Or take the metaphor of the clock. If the universe is like the cathedral clock
in Strasbourg (to which it was often compared in the seventeenth century), it
has a unity. But it also has workings that the natural philosopher may inves-
tigate, without prejudice to the fact that its various parts have been designed
with intent. On the subject of design, Robert Boyle could be overawed by a
mite. To describe it as curious “engine” emphasized the work of a designer in
that captivating underworld revealed through the microscope. The microscope
itself mediated between empirical enquiry and a revitalised natural theology
in which the sense of awe was often explicit, magnified by new contrasts be-
tween the natural and the artificial.^18 Human artifacts, such as a finely drawn
needle, looked crude and defective when magnified, whereas the most mun-
dane of natural objects, such as the scales on a fish, would reveal an unsus-
pected beauty.
My point is that a presupposition of the unity of nature allowed both sci-