CHAPTER XXIII 



THE PLACE OF SCIENCE 



In one of his purple passages Robert Louis Steven- 

 son declares :'" Science writes of the world with the 

 cold finger of a starfish ; -it is all true, but what 

 is it when compared to the reality of which it dis- 

 courses ? where hearts beat high in April, and 

 death strikes, and hills totter in the earthquake, 

 and there is glamour over all the objects of sight, 

 and a thrill in all noises of the ear, and Romance 

 herself has made her dwelling among men. So we 

 come back to the old myth, and hear the goat-footed 

 piper making the music which is itself the charm 

 and terror of things ; and when a glen invites our 

 visiting footsteps, fancy that Pan leads us thither 

 with a gracious tremolo ; or when our hearts quail 

 at the thunder of the cataract, tell ourselves that 

 he has stamped his hoof in the nigh thicket." 



But Stevenson is surely wrong. Science writes 

 not with the cold finger of a starfish, but with the 

 radiant finger of a star. She deals not merely with 



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