"it is a wonderful feeling to recognize the unity of a complex of phemonena that to direct observation appear to be quite separate things"
Albert Einstein

The Ionian Enchantment is an expression coined by the historian and physicist Gerald Holton to describe the belief in the unity of all sciences; or as Edward O. Wilson puts it, "a conviction ... that the world is orderly and can be explained by a small number of natural laws".

It is called the Ionian Enchantment after the the sixth century BC philosopher Thales of Miletus in Ionia who was regarded by Aristotle to be the founder of the physical sciences, and believed that all matter ultimately consisted of water. Although this contention is now known to be false, it metaphoprically expresses the desire for a unified theory of everything.

Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge by Edward. O. Wilson (1998)