The world of things entered your infant mind
To populate that crystal cabinet.
Within its walls the strangest partners met,
And things turned thoughts did propagate their kind.
For, once within, corporeal fact could find
A spirit. Fact and you in mutual debt
Built there your little microcosm—which yet
Had hugest tasks to its small self assigned.
Dead men can live there, and converse with stars:
Equator speaks with Pole, and Night with Day:
Spirit dissolves the world's material bars—
A million isolations burn away.
The Universe can live and work and plan,
At last made God within the mind of man." - Meaning and context.">
Poem in Essays of a Biologist (1923), quoted by Richard Dawkins in A Devil's Chaplain (2003).
“

The world of things entered your infant mind
To populate that crystal cabinet.

Within its walls the strangest partners met,
And things turned thoughts did propagate their kind.
For, once within, corporeal fact could find
A spirit. Fact and you in mutual debt
Built there your little microcosm—which yet
Had hugest tasks to its small self assigned.
Dead men can live there, and converse with stars:
Equator speaks with Pole, and Night with Day:
Spirit dissolves the world's material bars—
A million isolations burn away.
The Universe can live and work and plan,
At last made God within the mind of man.

— Julian Huxley

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "The world of things entered your infant mind
To populate that crystal cabinet.

Within its walls the strangest partners met,
And things turned thoughts did propagate their kind.
For, once within, corporeal fact could find
A spirit. Fact and you in mutual debt
Built there your little microcosm—which yet
Had hugest tasks to its small self assigned.
Dead men can live there, and converse with stars:
Equator speaks with Pole, and Night with Day:
Spirit dissolves the world's material bars—
A million isolations burn away.
The Universe can live and work and plan,
At last made God within the mind of man." in the context of "Poem in Essays of a Biologist (1923), quoted by Richard Dawkins in A Devil's Chaplain (2003)." to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Quote Image
Source: Wikiquote: "Julian Huxley" (Quotes) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Julian Huxley

About Julian Huxley

Sir Julian Sorell Huxley FRS (June 22 1887 – February 14 1975) was an English evolutionary biologist, author, humanist and internationalist, known for his popularisations of science in books and lectures. He was the elder brother of Aldous Huxley.