Imagination 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



322 



with alternate rows of polypi on each side, 

 and surrounding an elastic stony axis, vary- 

 ing in length from eight inches to two feet. 

 The stem at one extremity is truncate, but 

 at the other is terminated by a vermiform 

 fleshy appendage. . . . At low water 

 hundreds of these zoophytes might be seen, 

 projecting like stubble, with the truncate 

 end upwards, a few inches above the surface 

 of the muddy sand. When touched or pulled 

 they suddenly drew themselves in with force, 

 so as nearly or quite to disappear. . . . 

 It is always interesting to discover the foun- 

 dation of the strange tales of the old voy- 

 agers; and I have no doubt but that the 

 habits of this Virgularia explain one such 

 case. Captain Lancaster, in his voyage in 

 1601, narrates that on the sea-sands of the 

 Island of Sombrero, in the East Indies, he 

 " found a small twig growing up like a 

 young tree, and on offering to pluck it up it 

 shrinks down to the ground, and sinks, un- 

 less held very hard. On being plucked up, a 

 great worm is found to be its root, and 

 as the tree groweth in greatness, so doth 

 the worm diminish; and as soon as the 

 worm is entirely turned into a tree it root- 

 eth in the earth, and so becomes great. 

 This transformation is one of the strangest 

 wonders that I saw in all my travels: for 

 if this tree is plucked up while young, and 

 the leaves and bark stripped off, it becomes 

 a hard stone when dry, much like white 

 coral : thus is this worm twice transformed 

 into different natures. Of these we gathered 

 and brought home many." DARWIN Nat- 

 uralist's Voyage around the World, ch. 5, p. 

 99. (A., 1898.) 



1571. IMAGINATION ELIMINATED 



Photography vs. Drawing The Artist Has 

 More Discretion The Camera More Abso- 

 lute Faithfulness Conflict of Testimony be- 

 tween Conscientious Observers. -The skilful 

 draftsman can show in the same picture 

 details differing to any extent in intensity, 

 while the photograph is, so to speak, limited 

 to the reproduction of only one certain class 

 of details at a time. Still we can always be 

 sure that whatever a photograph does show 

 is an autographic representation of fact, and 

 not a figment of the imagination. This is 

 not the case with drawings; for it is re- 

 markable how widely two conscientious art- 

 ists will differ in their representations of 

 the same object, seen by both with the same 

 telescope, and under the same circumstances. 

 As an accurate record of the number, posi- 

 tion, and magnitude of the solar spots at 

 any given time, the photograph is, of course, 

 unexceptionable. YOUNG The Sun, ch. 2, p. 

 51. (A., 1898.) 



1572. IMAGINATION ESSENTIAL TO 

 SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH An intellectual 

 and ideal combination of the facts already 

 established often guides almost impercep- 

 tibly the course of presage, elevating it as 

 by a power of inspiration. How much has 

 been enounced among the Indians and 



Greeks and during the Middle Ages, regard- 

 ing the connection of natural phenomena, 

 which, at first either vague or blended with 

 the most unfounded hypotheses, has, at a 

 subsequent epoch, been confirmed by sure 

 experience and then been recognized- as a 

 scientific truth ! The presentient fancy and 

 the vivid activity of spirit which animated 

 Plato, Columbus, and Kepler must not be 

 disregarded, as if they had effected nothing 

 in the domain of science, or as if they 

 tended, of necessity, to draw the mind from 

 the investigation of the actual. HUMBOLDT 

 Cosmos, vol. ii, pt. ii, p. 107. (H., 1897.) 



1573. IMAGINATION IMPORTS FALSE 

 MATERIAL INTO SCENES OF MEMORY 



Not only does our idea of the past become 

 inexact by the mere decay and disappear- 

 ance of essential features: it becomes posi- 

 tively incorrect through the gradual incor- 

 poration of elements that do not properly 

 belong to it. Sometimes it is easy to see 

 how these extraneous ideas get imported 

 into our mental representation of a past 

 event. Suppose, for example, that a man 

 has lost a valuable scarf-pin. His wife sug- 

 gests that a particular servant, whose repu- 

 tation does not stand too high, has stolen it. 

 When he afterwards recalls the loss, the 

 chances are that he will confuse the fact 

 with the conjecture attached to it, and say 

 he remembers that this particular servant 

 did steal the pin. Thus, the past activity 

 of imagination serves to corrupt and par- 

 tially falsify recollections that have a genu- 

 ine basis of fact. SULLY Illusions, ch. 10, 

 p. 264. (A., 1897.) 



1574. IMAGINATION IN SCIENCE 



A Constructive Power Ideas of Cause, 

 Gravitation, Atomic Theory, and Kepler's 

 Laws, Its Products. With accurate experi- 

 ment and observation to work upon, imagi- 

 nation becomes the architect of physical 

 theory. Newton's passage from a falling 

 apple to a falling moon was an act of the 

 prepared imagination, without which the 

 " laws of Kepler " could never have been 

 traced to their foundations. Out of the 

 facts of chemistry the constructive imagina- 

 tion of Dalton formed the atomic theory. 

 Davy was richly endowed with the imagina- 

 tive faculty, while with Faraday its exer- 

 cise was incessant, preceding, accompanying, 

 and guiding all his experiments. His 

 strength and fertility as a discoverer are to 

 be referred in great part to the stimulus of 

 his imagination. Scientific men fight shy of 

 the word because of its ultrascientific con- 

 notations ; but the fact is that without the 

 exercise of this power our knowledge of 

 Nature would be a mere tabulation of co- 

 existences and sequences. We should still 

 believe in the succession of day and night, 

 of summer and winter; but the conception 

 of force would vanish from our universe; 

 causal relations would disappear, and with 

 them that science which is now binding the 



