III. 



Scientific Use of the Imagination. 



I carried with me to the Alps this year the heavy bur- 

 den of this evening's work. In the way of new investi- 

 gation I had nothing complete enough to be brought 

 before you ; so all that remained to me was to fall back 

 upon such residues as I could find in the depths of con- 

 sciousness, and out of them to spin the fiber and weave 

 the web of this discourse. Save from memory I had no 

 direct aid upon the mountains ; but to spur up the emo- 

 tions, on which so much depends, as well as to nourish 

 indirectly the intellect and will, I took with me two 

 volumes of poetry, Goethe's " Farbenlehre," and the work 

 on " Logic " recently published by Mr. Alexander Bain. 

 The spur, I am sorry to say, was no match for the integu- 

 ment of dullness it had to pierce. 



In Goethe, so glorious otherwise, I chiefly noticed the 

 self-inflicted hurts of genius, as it broke itself in vain 

 against the philosophy of Newton. For a time Mr. 

 Bain became my principal companion. I found him 

 learned and practical, shining generally with a dry light, 

 but exhibiting at times a flush of emotional strength, 

 which proved that even logicians share the common fire 

 of humanity. He interested me most when he became 

 the mirror of my own condition. Neither intellectually 

 nor socially is it good for man to be alone, and the 

 griefs of thought are more patiently borne when we find 

 that they have been experienced by another, From cer- 



