THE PLACE OF SCIENCE 295 



the Christian Scientists. But further — and this is 

 the point too apt to be ignored and forgotten — 

 she has opened new vistas to the imagination : she 

 has shown that the little twinkling stars are really 

 suns ; she has shown how worlds are made ; she 

 has given to man the marvellous hypothesis of 

 evolution^ and has opened up tremendous horizons 

 before and after. As soon as man learns to take 

 an imaginative view of the slow results of Science, 

 Science will take a place in his daily life that will 

 increase tenfold — even apart from its practical 

 advantages — the joy and the interest of living. 

 We must get out of the dust of dry detail on to 

 the heights of great generalisations and conceptions. 

 We must let Science capture the imagination. 



Why should the moon be only a yellow disc of 

 varying shape to most men } Does it not have 

 more meaning and beauty when we imagine its 

 origin torn from the molten world, when we can 

 see in it not " the man in the moon," but the 

 mighty craters of dead volcanoes } Does it not stand 

 out better from the sky when we see in the curved 

 line of its crescent or gibbous phase sign that it is 

 a globe, and not a merely flat disc ? Does not Mars 

 have more interest when we imagine the sun shin- 

 ing on its red sands, and living creatures wander- 

 ing along the green banks of its canals } Does not 

 the earth seem a more marvellous dwelling-place 



