One of the problems of taking things apart and seeing how they work - supposing you're trying to find out how a cat works--you take that cat apart to see how it works, what you've got in your hands is a non-working cat. The cat wasn't a sort of clunky mechanism that was susceptible to our available tools of analysis.

Summary

This quote suggests that dissecting or analyzing something, like a cat, in order to understand its inner workings may result in the loss of its inherent functionality. The cat is seen as more than just a complex mechanical system that can be fully explained through scientific means. It implies that there are certain aspects of living beings or systems that are elusive and beyond the scope of conventional analysis. Therefore, this quote advocates for acknowledging the limitations of reductionist approaches when attempting to comprehend the intricacies of complex entities.

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