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Show 169. precious to be wasted in other men's transcripts of their readings." So Pound told the reader not to waste his time with critics or textbook writers. But we also see in Pound's anecdote what has happened to the Book of Nature in the twentieth century. It has been replaced by the books of man. What happened, that Lord Man's creations now merit the faith which was once appropriate only to the Book of Nature? We shall see. If Agassiz could believe that he was reading the thoughts of God in the Book, he had not told the scientist how to make a translation. But comparison is the heart of metaphor. Agassiz's method of study led directly to a metaphor of Nature as Book. Even while Agassiz's method of study became the standard of American schools, Asa Gray began to scrutinize its validity- Indeed, Gray was known as the American Huxley, because he supported Darwin against Agassiz in this country. When he considered the Darwinian method as opposed to that expounded by Agassiz, he decided that Agassiz ultimately interpreted Nature as a theological text, where its phenomena were seen in relation to the Divine mind. Darwin examined phenomena in Nature as they related to one another and as they resulted from natural causes. If Gray could not share Agassiz's faith in the relationship between God's systematic intentions and man's scientific classification systems, he still thought the method of study had value. As he explained in his own Lessons in Botany, the purpose of classification systems was to allow the student |