UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 



philosophy clothe the bones with something analo- 

 gous to flesh and blood and warmth and color. 



The sensitive, imaginative mind cares only for 

 that scientific truth which points to something 

 beyond science — to large, ideal views. Unless sci- 

 ence makes the world more alive and significant 

 to such a mind, unless its truths have ideal values 

 and can in some measure be made into the bread of 

 literature, it does not permanently interest it. The 

 hard, literal facts of physical science, unless one can 

 synthesize them and thus in a measure escape 

 from them, are barren and tasteless to the artistic 

 mind. 



In the great sciences, like astronomy and geology, 

 one gets wholes; the imagination has play-room. 

 The cosmic laws launch him upon a shoreless sea. 

 One is blown upon by a breeze from eternity. The 

 same with biology in the light of evolution. 



The humanistic view and the scientific view of the 

 universe supplement each other; science corrects 

 and guides sense, humanism enlarges and colors and 

 vitalizes science. After science has unveiled the 

 heavens, our human emotions play about them; 

 after it has revealed to us the history of the earth 

 and of man, emotion and imagination have fresh 

 material to work upon. Science is exact fact; litera- 

 ture is liberal truth. 



The universe of science is the real world; the 

 imion of literature and art shows what we make of 



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