MEDICINE VERSUS ART 23 



his own country than elsewhere — even so, a knowledge of history 

 is the only way of removing his provincialism with regard to time 

 — that is, of making him realize that things are not necessarily 

 better in his days than in earlier or, maybe, in later ones. Neither 

 geography nor history was new in Humboldt's days, but he in- 

 creased considerably the scope and the implications of both. For 

 example, he showed that history should be focussed upon the his- 

 tory of science, and also upon the history of arts and letters; but 

 most remarkable of all was his realization of the polarity of arts 

 and sciences. After having described nature in volume one of the 

 Cosmos, he devoted the second volume to a new description of 

 nature as reflected in the human mind, by the imagination (that 

 is art) or by the reasoning power (that is science) . In this respect, 

 he was breaking ground so new that the vast majority of scientists 

 and scholars of to-day have not yet grasped what he was trying 

 to do. 



The project was so ambitious that realization fell far short of it, 

 but we must not blame him. Pioneers are beginners; they cannot 

 be expected to complete their task; it is not their business to com- 

 plete it. Some day the substance of that second volume will 

 have to be worked out again and rewritten, but it will take a man 

 of unusual learning, artistry and wisdom to do it well. As I see it 

 now, the great story which cries to be told is that of the rhythm of 

 the mutual interrelations between science, art and religion. The 

 story is very difficult to tell, because it is not a story of progress 

 like the history of science, but of vacillations and vicissitudes, of 

 harmony followed by chaos, and beauty mixed with horrors. It 

 would be the story of man's sensitiveness to the fundamental 

 problems and the main values of life. 



All honor to Alexander von Humboldt for having shown the 

 way, and the more so that we are so slow in following it, and that 

 our scientists, so intelligent in some respects, are so stupid in 

 others, and our artists, so clever, yet so blind. Beauty is there for 

 all to see, and truth, and virtue, but how few realize that they are 

 but different aspects of the same mystery? 



