LITERATURE AND SCIENCE 



how to secure its physical well-being. Literature 

 interprets life and nature in terms of our sentiments 

 and emotions; science interprets them in terms of 

 our understanding. 



The habit of mind begotten by the contemplation 

 of Nature, and by our emotional intercourse with 

 her, is in many ways at enmity with the habit of 

 mind begotten by the scientific study of Nature. 

 The former has given us literature, art, religion ; out 

 of the latter has come our material civilization. Out 

 of it has also come our enlarged conception of the 

 physical universe, and a true insight as to our re- 

 lations with it, albeit this gain seems to have 

 been purchased, more or less, at the expense of that 

 state of mind that in the past has given us the great 

 poets and prophets and religious teachers and in- 

 spirers. 



The saying of Coleridge, that the real antithesis 

 to poetry is not prose but science, is of permanent 

 value. When we look upon nature and life as the 

 poet does, or as does an emotional, imaginative 

 being, we see quite a different world from the one 

 we see when, armed with chemistry and physics, 

 we go forth to analyze it and appraise it in teruLs of 

 exact knowledge. Science is cold and calculating, 

 and can only deal with verifiable fact. And by far 

 the larger part of nature and of life is unverifiablo, 

 and therefore beyond the province of science. Sci- 

 ence strips Nature to her bare bones; literature and 



177 



