LITTLE and at the same time wrote books on science and dedi- 

 JOURNEYS cated them to Thomas Huxley, Bishop of all Agnostics. 



QTo the scientist the word " supernatural" is a con- 

 tradiction. Everything that is in the Universe is 

 natural; the supernatural is the natural not yet under- 

 stood. And what is called the supernatural is often 

 but the figment of a disordered, undisciplined or un- 

 developed imagination. 



Simple people think of imagination as that quality of 

 mind which revels in fairy tales and stories of hob- 

 goblins, but such an imagination is undisciplined and 

 undeveloped. The scientist who deals with the sternest 

 of facts must be highly imaginative, or his work is vain. 

 The engineer sees his structure complete, ere he 

 draws his plans. So the scientist divines the thing 

 first and then looks for it until he finds it. Were this 

 not so he would not be able to recognize things hither- 

 to unknown, when he saw them, nor could he fit fact 

 to fact, like bones in a skeleton, and build a complete 

 structure if it all did not first exist as a thought. 

 To reprove and punish children for flights of imagi- 

 nation, John Fiske argued was one of the things done 

 only by a barbaric people. Children first play at the 

 thing, which later they are to do well. Play is prepa- 

 ration. The man of imagination is the man of sympa- 

 thy, and such only are those who benefit and bless 

 mankind and help us on our way. 



John Fiske had imagination enough to follow closely 

 and hold fellowship with the greatest minds the world 

 has ever known. 

 148 



