THE HIGHER VALUES OF SCIENCE 293 



of man as the victor over nature, notwithstanding those 

 laws which are inexorable for other living things. No 

 other species is known to have spread itself so widely over 

 the earth and to have so changed its environment to suit its 

 needs. Herein lies the difference between man and the rest 

 of the animal world. Wherever else an animal has been 

 subjected to a new environment, the result has been death or 

 the evolution of a new type suited to meet the changed 

 conditions. But man has taken himself and his domesticated 

 plants and animals into surroundings to which neither he 

 nor they are naturally adapted; and, instead of paying the 

 penalty inevitable in a state of nature, they have survived, 

 and flourished. Where nature would say "Die!" man has 

 said, "I will live!" And he has succeeded, because he has 



return to the imaginings of an earlier day in the following passage: "Words- 

 worth expresses the familiar sentiment when he wishes that he could be 'a 

 pagan suckled in some creed outworn.' The sight of Proteus and Triton might 

 restore to the world the long-vanished charm. Now, as far as science is con- 

 cerned, we are tempted to say that Wordsworth is simply wrong. The Greek 

 mythology gave an inaccurate representation of the facts. The more accu- 

 rately we know them the better for us. A slight acquaintance with the law of 

 storms is far more useful to the sailor than any guess about a mysterious being, 

 capriciously raising the waves, and capable, perhaps, of being propitiated by 

 charms. From the purely utilitarian point of view, we are the better off the 

 closer the correspondence between our beliefs and the external realities. But, 

 further, we are tempted to say the same even in a poetical sense. Why should 

 Wordsworth regret Proteus and Triton? Because the Greek inferred from the 

 sea the existence of beings the contemplation of whose power and beauty was 

 a source of delight to him? But, in the first place, the facts are to Wordsworth 

 what they were to the Greek. If the Greek thought the sea lovely in colour or 

 form, the colour and the form remain. The imaginary being in whom the 

 phenomena were embodied could only be known through the phenomena. 

 The beauty is beautiful still, though 'we no longer infer an imaginary cause. 

 Nothing is lost but a dream, and a dream, which, by its nature, could only 

 reflect the reality. Why not love the sea instead of loving Proteus, who is 

 but the sea personified? And, secondly, we must add that the dream reflects 

 the painful as well as the pleasurable emotions. When the superstition was a 

 living reality, instead of a poetical plaything, we may be sure that it expressed 

 horror as well as delight. The sailor, imagining a treacherous deity lurking 

 beneath the waves, saw new cause for dread, and would often have been glad 

 enough to learn that Proteus was a figment." "English Thought in the 

 Eighteenth Century," p. 14, 2nd Edn. 



