This caught my eye, a surprising definition of wonder, presented as ‘broken knowledge’. I wondered if that meant ‘incomplete’ knowledge, the awe that comes of observing without understanding, but the scientist Richard Dawkins has pointed out that understanding the workings of something can increase, rather than decrease, your sense of wonder.

The more I learn of nature, the more wonder-full it seems.

 

‘Wonder, which is broken knowledge.’ 

 

Source: Francis Bacon, quoted in John Drury, Music at Midnight: The Life and Poetry of George Herbert (London: Penguin Books, 2014), p. 134

Photo credit: OpenClipart-Vectors at pixabay

 

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