612 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



most naturalists ^ of modern times, is the synoptic view. 

 To this view every object of contemplation, be it large 

 or small, physical or mental, is a whole, a totality, 

 which, in the actual " Together " of its apparent parts, 

 reveals to us something which is lost as soon as we start 

 to dissect or analyse it. In the most emphatic way this 

 view looks also at nature as a whole. Its rationale may 



^ It would be transgressing the 

 limits of the present section of this 

 History to do more than merely 

 hint at this uniting link of the 

 scientific and the poetical aspects 

 of nature. The subject can only be 

 adequately treated in the third 

 section, which should deal with indi- 

 vidual poetic and religious Thought, 

 The instances of poetical or artistic 

 minds of a high order being at the 

 same time naturalists, in the stricter 

 sense of the word, are not frequent, 

 though they exist. Not to mention 

 Lionardo da Vinci, who belongs to 

 a much earlier age, we have, in the 

 eighteenth century, Albrecht von 

 Haller in Germany, Goethe in the 

 beginning and Ruskin in the middle 

 of the nineteenth century. On the 

 other side many of the foremost 

 naturalists of the earlier school, like 

 Buffon in France and Humboldt in 

 Germany, and an increasing number 

 in more recent times, have displayed 

 not only a scientific but a very keen 

 artistic appreciation of natural ob- 

 jects and of nature as a whole. As 

 quite recent instances I may men- 

 tion Sir Archibald Geikie and Prof. 

 John Arthur Thompson of Aber- 

 deen. No doubt my readers will 

 think of many other examples of 

 the close alliance between the 

 poetical and the scientific love of 

 nature. But Goethe stands out as 

 a unique instance of the immediate 

 influence of poetry, both on science 

 and on philosophy. He clearly 

 pointed out that Sight, and not 

 Thought, represents the beginning 



and first stage both for the poet 

 and the naturalist. The German 

 language has for this a distinctive 

 term in the word Anschauung, 

 which is not identical with Intui- 

 tion, for it does not necessarily 

 include the mystical element im- 

 plied by the latter term. It is inter- 

 esting to see how, probably without 

 much knowledge of German or any 

 acquaintance with Goethe's frequent 

 discourses on this subject, Ruskin, 

 in the 3rd vol. of ' Modern Painters ' 

 (1st ed., p. 288), uses the word 

 Sight in exactly the same mean- 

 ing as belongs to the German word 

 Anschauung. As in this sense it 

 has not become current in psycho- 

 logical discussions, I have, as stated 

 above (p. 193 n.), adopted the word 

 "synopsis," denoting by this term 

 " the power of fully perceiving any 

 natural object." It "depends on 

 our being able to group and fasten 

 all our fancies about it as a centre, 

 making a garland of thoughts for 

 it in which each separate thought 

 is subdued and shortened of its own 

 strength in order to fit it for har- 

 mony with others, — the intensity 

 of our enjoyment of the object 

 depending first on its own beauty, 

 and then on the richness of the 

 garland. And men who have this 

 habit of clustering and harmonising 

 their thoughts are a little too apt 

 to look scornfully upon the harder 

 workers who tear the bouquet to 

 pieces to examine the stems " (Rus- 

 kin, loc. fit., p. 290). 



