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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LIV. No. 1402 



a moment in the history of man's develop- 

 ment, and their influence is as nothing in 

 comparison with instincts derived from our 

 early ancestors and traditions of more recent 

 times grafted upon them. So little is known 

 of science that to most people old women's 

 tales or the single testimony of a casual on- 

 looker are as credible as the statements and 

 conclusions of the most careful observers. 

 Where esact knowledge exists, however, to 

 place opinion by the side of fact is to blow 

 a bubble into a flame. Within its own do- 

 main science is concerned not with belief — 

 except as a subject of inquiry — ^but with evi- 

 dence. It claims the right to test all things 

 in order to be able to hold fast to that which 

 is good. It declines to accept popular beliefs 

 as to thunderbolts; living frogs and toads 

 embedded in blocks of coal or other hard rock 

 without an opening, though the rock was 

 formed millions of years ago and all fossils 

 found in it are crushed as flat as paper; the 

 inheritance of microbie diseases; the produc- 

 tion of rain by explosions when the air is 

 far removed from its saturation point; the 

 influence of the moon on the weather or of 

 underground water upon a twig held by a 

 dowser, and dozens of like fallacies, solely be- 

 cause when weighed in the balance they have 

 been found wanting in scientific truth. Its 

 only interest in mysteries is that of inquir- 

 ing into them and finding a natural reason 

 for them. Mystery is thus not destroyed by 

 knowledge but removed to a higher plane. 



Wever let it be acknowledged that science 

 destroys imagination, for the reverse is the 

 truth. " The Gods are dead," said W. E. 

 Henley. 



The world, a world of prose, 

 Full-erammed with facts, in science swathed and 

 sheeted, 

 Nods in a stertorous after-dinner doze! 

 Plangent and sad, in every wind that blows 

 Who will may hear the sorry words repeated: — 

 " The Gods are dead." 



It is true that the old idols of wood and 

 stone are gone, but far nobler conceptions 

 conceptions have taken their place. The uni- 

 verse no longer consists of a few thousand 



lamps lit nightly by angel torches, but of 

 millions of suns moving in the infinite azure, 

 into which the mind of man is continually 

 penetrating further. Astronomy shows that 

 realms of celestial light exist where darkness 

 was supposed to prevail, while scientific im- 

 agination enables obscure stars to be found 

 which can never be brought within the sense 

 of human vision, the invisible lattice work of 

 crystals to be discerned, and the movements 

 of constituent particles of atoms to be deter- 

 mined as accurately as those of planets around 

 the sun. The greatest advances of science 

 are made by the disciplined use of imagina- 

 tion; but in this field the picture conceived 

 is always presented to Nature for approval 

 or rejection, and her decision upon it is final. 

 In contemporary art, literature, and drama 

 imagination may be dead, but not in science, 

 which can provide hundreds of arresting ideas 

 awaiting beautiful expression by pen and 

 pencil. It has been said that the purpose of 

 poetry is not truth, but pleasure; yet, even 

 if this definition be accepted, we submit that 

 insight into the mysteries of Nature should 

 exalt, rather than repress, the poetic spirit, 

 and be used to enrich verse, as it was by some 

 of the world's greatest poets — Lucretius, 

 Dante, Milton, Goethe, Tennyson, and Brown- 

 ing. With one or two brilliant exceptions, 

 popular writers of the present day are com- 

 pletely oblivious to the knowledge gained by 

 scientific study, and unmoved by the mes- 

 sage which science is alone able to give. Un- 

 bounded riches have been placed before them, 

 yet they continue to rake the muck-heap of 

 animal passions for themes of composition. 

 Not by their works shall we become " children 

 of light," but by the indomitable spirit of 

 man ever straining upwards to reach the 

 stars. 



Where there is ignorance of natural laws 

 all physical phenomena are referred to super- 

 natural causes. Disease is accepted as Di- 

 vine punishment to be met by prayer and 

 fasting, or the act of a secret enemy in com- 

 munion with evil spirits. Because of these 

 beliefs thousands of innocent people were 

 formerly burnt and tortured as witches and 



