122 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA 



them. Better no poems whatever than to have 

 manufactured sentiment. 



In our day of science people seem to be afraid 

 of sentiment. The scientist forbids us to personify ; 

 and this is well. But this spirit may be carried so 

 far as to forbid figures of speech and to condemn 

 parables. Speech cannot be literally accurate. 

 Even astronomers say that the sun sets, but we 

 know that it does not. The trouble with much of 

 the sentiment is that it gives us a wrong point of 

 view. To say that a potato-plant works all the 

 season in order to provide for its offspring the next 

 year is said to give a wrong conception of the plant 

 because it implies motive. But does this picture 

 mislead any one ? Everybody knows that a potato- 

 plant has no brains. Everybody knows that the 

 statement conveys a truth. Under certain conditions 

 I believe that it is perfectly justifiable. If it is not, 

 then I may not say that a potato has eyes. Much 

 of the objection to statements of this kind is mere 

 quibbling. But, on the other hand, all such 

 allegories must be true in spirit and in their 

 teaching. Much of the current writing of plants 

 and animals, by which human motives are implied, 

 is productive of harm ; but we should distinguish 

 between metaphor, or mere literary license, and an 

 untrue point of view. The ultimate test is whether 

 the reader is lead to believe what is not true. An 

 animal or a plant may be represented as telling its 

 own story without misleading any one, even as a 

 character in a novel may speak in the first person ; 

 we need not imply human motives or human 



