2l6 THE EVOLUTION OF DERBYSHIRE SCENERY. 



a meaning, and carries the imagination back to a period when 

 things were not as they are now, but when the present forces 

 were at work slowly bringing about the present state of things. 

 It is frequently said that science takes the poetry out of physical 

 phenomena by explaining them, the romance being, therefore, 

 rooted in ignorance. On the contrary, science infuses new 

 interest and the highest poetry into everything — her explanations 

 can never be ultimate, they simply lead on to fresh discoveries, 

 ever opening out fresh vistas of enquiry, and at every step 

 strengthening the reason and stimulating the imagination. To 

 the unlearned the river gorge and gaping chasm are evidence 

 only of some huge convulsion which rent the rocks asunder — 

 and there the matter ends. The geologist perceives in them 

 evidence of the prolonged action of water, and thence spreads 

 out a series of questions. How did the water get there? in 

 what way did it manage to remove the solid rock ? and why 

 should it have carved out the rock in just that shape ? And to 

 answer these questions, he has to ask others — of Nature, who, 

 in answering one, invariably suggests others, so that, although 

 he is infinitely wiser and nearer the solution of the problem, 

 yet he sees stretched before him an interminable vista of 

 questions to be asked and secrets to be revealed, which, after 

 it has been traversed, will still find him face to face with mystery. 

 Yet the glimpse that he gets of the relations of things, of the 

 interdependence and immutability of nature's laws, is spiritual 

 food and drink, providing that energy and stimulus from which 

 alone proceeds worthy and fruitful scientific investigation. 



