XI 



LITERATURE AND SCIENCE 



I 



IT is not in the act of seeing things or apprehend- 

 ing facts that we differ so much from one an- 

 other, as in the act of interpreting what we see or 

 apprehend. Interpretation opens the door to the 

 play of temperament and imagination, and to the 

 bias of personahty, and is therefore within the 

 sphere of hterature. A mind that has a Uvely fancy 

 and a sense of mystery will interpret phenomena 

 quite differently from a mind in which these things 

 are absent. The poetic, the religious, the ethical 

 mind will never be satisfied with the interpretation 

 of the physical universe given us by the scientific 

 mind. To these mental types such an interpreta- 

 tion seems hard and barren; it leaves a large part of 

 our human nature unsatisfied. If a man of science 

 were to explain to a mother all the physical proper- 

 ties, functions, and powers of her baby, and all its 

 natural history, would the mother see her baby in 

 such a portraiture.^ Would he have told her why 

 she loves it? It is the province of literature and art 

 to tell her why she loves it, and to make her love it 

 more; of science, to tell her how she came by it, and 



176 



