SCIENCE AND ART 179 



of Nature, some of which we have indicated, 

 have scientific validity. They are borne in on 

 man and not artistically projected from him. 

 They are cumulative syntheses of facts of expe- 

 rience, and some of : them, though varying in form 

 and colour from age to age, are very ancient. 

 They have never ceased to supply the raw mate- 

 rials of poetry. Demonstrably, indeed, a large 

 part of the world's poetry from Homer to Tenny- 

 son, from the Nature-Psalms to Meredith, has 

 been saturated with their influence. 



In ancient days there were those who knew 

 Nature well and loved her well, who felt that 

 while they could discover certain secrets that 

 cleared their outlook and made for practical 

 advantage, yet there remained much that was 

 elusive and mysterious. So they did what Man 

 has always done, they used art to express their 

 feeling of Nature's powers and immensities, of 

 the pervading order amid a restless flux. For 

 instance, they fashioned what we sometimes 

 call Fairy Tales, many of which are artistic 

 expressions of very sound science. Many of them, 

 for instance, reveal a very penetrating insight 

 into the gist of natural phenomena, especially 

 of the march of the seasons. Let us take one 

 instance. 



"There was Dornroschen, the Sleeping Beauty 

 (our fair Earth), wounded by a spindle (the 



