272 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



To lie before us like a land of dreams, 



So various, so beautiful, so new, 

 Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, 

 Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain. 



The outward gentleman who is an inward voluptuary, confides to 

 you upon occasion that he is a " man of the world," and with the slight- 

 est encouragement he will let you know what " the world " is viewed 

 from his standpoint. 



The subjective idealist speaks without a qualification or misgiving 

 about " my world," " your world," " his world " — how we, he and you 

 and I create these several worlds. 



" Nature is in reality a tapestry of which we see the reverse side. 

 This is why we try to turn it/' says a distinguished French literary 

 critic. 



A fact about these various worlds which comes out in bold relief 

 when we place them alongside one another is the way they contradict, 

 in some instances quite annihilate, one another. Perhaps the crowning 

 instance of mutually annihilative " worlds " is the " all is flux " world 

 of the Hereclitian philosophy, and the " no new thing under the sun " 

 world of Ecclesiastes. And if any one is disposed to think this Greek- 

 Hebrew world muddle is too ancient and outworn to be significant for 

 us moderns, let him recall, on the one hand, the energeticers, to use a 

 term that has gained some currency for designating a number of men 

 high-stationed in the science of the present moment ; and, on the other 

 hand, those speculators who largely stake their scientific faith on a 

 motionless ether. 



The world surely does " speak a various language " to different 

 persons. This can not be doubted. And there is much to justify the 

 assertion of a German writer on esthetics that " Die Natur ist jedem 

 ein anderes" (Nature is something different to every person). " Dem 

 Kinde [ist es] kindlich, dem Gotte gottlich " (To the child it is child- 

 ish, to the God, divine). 



But is it really true that nature — the world — is through and 

 through different to each person? Does each one create and possess his 

 own world, and that in such fashion that these worlds have not in deep- 

 est essence, identical elements of uncompromising objectivity ? Were I 

 to attempt to answer this question to-night in terms that would fit well 

 into the scheme of office furniture, so to speak, of either the professional 

 scientist or the professional philosopher, I should soon empty this 

 room, at any rate, if the company were to be more truthful than courte- 

 ous in expressing its feelings as to the properties of such an occasion 

 as this. 



So what I say toward an answer to the query shall not be in the role 

 of either scientist or philosopher, but rather that of the humble natural- 



