366 NATHANIEL SOUTHGATE SHALER 



investigative. Absence of the supernatural spirit among the Greeks the 

 cause of their scientific advance. Utter want of scientific spirit among the 

 Semitic peoples. With all the wisdom of the Bible there is no trace of scien- 

 tific inquiry not so among the Vedas, etc., etc. 



Kepler's view truer than that of him who thinks he is philosophical when 

 he excludes all idea of plan from his conception of the actions which have 

 made the earth what it is. The imagination and the religious instincts have 

 their place in the investigation of nature ; they give the light and show the 

 way to those fields where the harvest is gathered with the microscope and 

 the telescope. He who begins an investigation by excluding his imagination 

 and his religiosity begins a difficult search by shutting out the light. He will- 

 ingly gropes in the dark with the idea that he is more likely to grasp the 

 truth by chance than by guidance. I do not advocate the use of imagination 

 alone or the use of the religious impulse alone; I would have the whole 

 man given to an investigation. We are intellectually argus-eyed ; what folly, 

 then, to try to see by shutting all the avenues of seeing but one! The world 

 is vast enough to require the aid of every faculty with which we are blessed 

 if we would read its riddles. 



His tendency as a lecturer has been briefly summed up in the 

 following words : 



It was largely from the point of unity and continuity that he revealed 

 the order of nature to the thousands of students who attended his lectures 

 these many years; the interaction of the sun, winds, oceans, lands, and life 

 being the main theme in his presentation of geology, while his treatment of 

 paleontology was directed to describing the ancient forms of life, not merely 

 for themselves but as the ancestors of the present inhabitants of the earth. 

 He never limited his attention closely to one line of inquiry, but was always 

 keenly interested in a wide variety of natural and human phenomena ; and 

 one sign of this was the manner in which he would consult his colleagues on 

 unexpected topics. He was especially fond of tracing the connections which 

 bind together the various regions of knowledge, showing at once the natural- 

 ist's love of detail and the philosopher's fondness for large problems. 1 



As a teacher it was Mr. Shaler's good fortune to inspire as 

 well as to instruct, and intellectual contact with him seemed 

 to increase a man's capacity for knowing a fine thing whenever 



i Minute on the Life and Services of Nathaniel Southgate Shaler, Harvard University 



