168 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 



beyond their scientific skill, all great scientists 

 possess much of this artistic skill, the very por- 

 tion, indeed, of their experience and experimenting 

 which they themselves never fully understand, 

 though the source of then* greatest discoveries, 

 and which, essentially incommunicable, necessarily 

 dies with the possessor" (Branford, 1904, p. 12). 

 ^ESTHETICS. As we have indicated, it is be- 

 yond our power in this short Introduction to do 

 more than refer to the interesting study called 

 aesthetics. It inquires into the characteristics 

 of that familiar experience which we call enjoy- 

 ing Nature or Art, and of the rarer experience of 

 productive artists. It asks such questions as 

 the following: How does the sense of beauty 

 differ from other states? The pleasure that we 

 get from music or from the silence that is in the 

 starry sky, from the restless sea eternally new or 

 from the sleep that is among the lonely hills; 

 how does it differ from other pleasures? What 

 is the meaning of those sensations that follow 

 changes in breathing, circulation, and the like, 

 when we enjoy beautiful scenery and music? 

 What gives aesthetic pleasure its peculiar quality 

 of "relative permanency," a thing of beauty 

 being "a joy for ever" though we never see it 

 again? What can be known of the "artistic 

 instinct" or of the artist's creativeness? How 

 is the art-instinct linked to the play-instinct? 



