THE SELECTION OF FACTS. 23 



that ever were, constructed a heaven for themselves ; 

 how poor a thing it is beside the heaven as we know it ! 



It is because simpHcity and vastness are both beau- 

 tiful that we seek by preference simple facts and vast 

 facts ; that we take delight, now in following the giant 

 courses of the stars, now in scrutinizing with a micro- 

 scope that prodigious smallness which is also a vastness, 

 and now in seeking in geological ages the traces of a 

 past that attracts us because of its remoteness. 



Thus we see that care for the beautiful leads us to 

 the same selection as care for the useful. Similarly 

 economy of thought, that economy of effort which, 

 according to Mach, is the constant tendency of science, 

 is a source of beauty as well as a practical advantage. 

 The buildings we admire are those in which the archi- 

 tect has succeeded in proportioning the means to the 

 end, in which the columns seem to carry the burdens 

 imposed on them lightly and without effort, like the 

 graceful caryatids of the Erechthcum. 



Whence comes this concordance? Is it merely 

 that things which seem to us beautiful are those 

 which are best adapted to our intelligence, and that 

 consequently they are at the same time the tools that 

 intelligence knows best how to handle? Or is it due 

 rather to evolution and natural selection ? Have the 

 peoples whose ideal conformed best to their own in- 

 terests, properly understood, exterminated the others 

 and taken their place? One and all pursued their 

 ideal without considering the consequences, but while 

 this pursuit led some to their destruction, it gave 

 empire to others. We are tempted to believe this, 

 for if the Greeks triumphed over the barbarians, and 

 if Europe, heir of the thought of the Greeks, dominates 



