THE HARMONY OF VIRTUE

38 The Harmony of Virtuerose, a wind-inspired frigate, an evergreen poem, and you willnot be disappointed. With all this in your mind, you will surelyadmit that even if we compare the universe to a system of designswe shall not arrive at other results than when we comparedit to God's episode in flowers and his marshalled pomp ofstars and a sentence beautifully written.Wilson: Yet I should like to ask one more question.Keshav: My dear Broome, you are at liberty to ask a thousand,for I am always ready to answer.Wilson: A single answer will satisfy me. Why do you comparethe universe to a system of designs and not to a singledesign?Keshav: The universe itself is a system of designs, firstthe harmony of worlds and within it the lands and seas and onthat the life of flowers and trees and the life of birds and beastsand fishes and the life of human beings. Imagine the Greeks insearch of a dominant idea to regulate the variety of their designsand hitting on the human figure as their model; wouldthey not have been foolish, if they had gone away from theirstudy of the human figure and drawn a system balancing likedesign by like design!Wilson: I suppose they would.Keshav: Nor should we be less foolish to draw up an idealuniverse or a system of designs on the principle of a single design.Are you satisfied?Wilson: Perfectly.Keshav: And our conclusion is that we ought to regulatethe variety of the types in the universe, not by balancing likewith like, but by determining the lines of variance on one dominantprinciple.Wilson: That is the indisputable conclusion.Keshav: And so now we have panted up to the ridge weonce thought the crowning summit we find that we have to climbanother slope as arduous which was lying in wait for us behind.We have discovered the presence of a dominant idea in the varietyof types, but we do not know what the idea may be.Wilson: That is what we have to find.Keshav: But if we find that all diverging types observe a