SCIENCE AND LITERATURE 83 



still more unfortunate that, knowing nothing, ho 

 should publish his conclusions about them. And 

 yet scientific mon, extreme specialists as they 

 are and must be in their researches, are not 

 without some knowledge of the lives and interests 

 of their literary and artistic comrades. 



It is not necessary or desirable to consider hero 

 the hypothesis by which the author explains 

 to his own satisfaction an antagonism which only 

 exists in his imagination. But it is right to say 

 a few words about his treatment of science as 

 something essentially modern. The sciences are 

 not new. Aristotle, it has been well said, was 

 just the kind of man one would expect to meet at 

 the Royal Society or in the Athenaeum. But the 

 spirit of science goes back far beyond the days of 

 Aristotle, to the dawning of the love of knowledge 

 in the developing mind of man, to that primaeval 

 time when wonder first became mingled with 

 delight as he looked upon the world around him. 

 But the ancient desire to find out the ways of 

 nature is gratified in an inexhaustible field where 

 every fulfilment brings a new desire and fresh 

 territory. For this reason the comradeship of 

 scientific men is both stimulating and encouraging 

 to the followers of literature, poring, as so many of 

 them do, over world-worn themes of matchless 

 dignity and beauty, but breathing all the time 

 an atmosphere which tends to over-develop the 

 purely critical faculties and to leave the creative 

 imagination dwarfed and stunted. 



G2 



