SCIENCE AND POETRY. 377 



poetic ; or that of necessity, an exact method of looking at 

 things should utterly annul the sense wherewith we discover 

 their external beauty or the wondrous and subtle rhythm and 

 measure that pervades the universe at large. 



If, therefore, in answer to the queiy, "Does science 

 necessarily destroy poetry ? " I find ample reason to return 

 a negative reply, there yet remains for consideration the 

 question of the true relations of poetry to the scientific inter- 

 pretation of nature. The age we live in has been blamed, 

 perhaps not unjustly, for its over-practical tendencies, and 

 its utilitarian demands. I shall not deny that the spirit of 

 "use and no use" is too much employed as the criterion of 

 intellectual studies, and tends of itself to destroy the finer 

 emotions, from the very heart of which the sense of poetry 

 alone can spring. 



Whilst the fuller scientific knowledge of nature does 

 not necessarily destroy these emotions, but is calculated, 

 as I have tried to show, to foster and enlarge their range 

 of expression, there is an aspect of science in which it 

 may certainly modify the results and exercise of the poetic 

 faculty. Provided you accept Mr. Froude's dictum, that 

 the greatness of poetry lies in its "being true to nature," 

 you may readily see that science may and does act as a 

 censor of ideas of nature which are founded on imper- 

 fect conceptions and rude or even absurd ideas of natural 

 objects, or of the world as a whole. You are familiar with 

 the stories related even now as matter-of-fact observations 

 in some popular manuals of natural history, regarding the 

 little cuttle-fish known as the paper nautilus or argonaut, 

 and its wondrous powers of sailing on the surface of the sea. 

 You remember Pope's lines : 



"Learn of the little nautilus to sail, 



Spread the thin oar and catch the driving gale. " 



You know Byron's description also : 



" The tender nautilus, who steers his prow, 

 The sea-born sailor of his shell canoe, 

 The ocean mab, the fairy of the sea." 



