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future generations. There are times — as for example the 

 17th century — when a multitude of great geniuses step 

 forward at once, as if by previous concert, and science 

 is filled with great discoveries. A quieter period follows, 

 in which the great ideas of the previous time are 

 explained, arranged and determined. This endeavor at 

 first promotes the organization of the new ideas ; the 

 imagination is nourished and animated by the contem- 

 plation of the new views of Nature. But at length the 

 definition is carried to such an extent, that it destroys all 

 life, and it would transform science to a soulless petrifac- 

 tion, did not genius again appear and rekindle the extin- 

 guished fire. It seems as if it were the instinctive dread 

 of that universal death, which most powerfully stimu- 

 lates the slumbering energies of the intellect, and which 

 leads us up to those higher views of science which enrich 

 the imaginative faculties. As our corporeal life consists 

 in a perpetual struggle of antagonistic forces; so our 

 mental life maintains its vigor and strength through a 

 similar contest between truth and error. Every doubt, 

 every contradiction to truth, awakens an argument in its 

 defence, places it in a clearer light, and thus prepares the 

 way for a vivid appreciation of those wider generaliza- 

 tions which exalt our conceptions of Deity and re-act on 

 the moral faculties of mankind. 



The fear of sacrificing the free enjoyment of nature, 

 under the influence of scientific reasoning, is often asso- 

 ciated with the apprehension that the enlargement of the 

 empire of reality, must necessarily contract the domains 

 in which the creative powers of fancy delight to rove. 

 It seems to me, that such a view is based upon a miscon- 

 ception of the subject. For it is the peculiar g-ttribute 



