Yet Nature is made better by no mean But Nature makes that mean; so over that art Which you say adds to Nature, is an art That Nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry A gentler scion to the wildest stock, And conceive a bark of baser kind By bud of nobler race. This is an art Which does mend Nature, change it rather; but the Art itself is Nature. -- William Shakespeare. The Winter's Tale. (the disguised king Polixene's reply to the shepherdess Perdita's objection to flower hybridization (e.g. of carnations) for producing Nature's bastards).