July 17, 1003.] 



SCIENCE. 



79 



training of the imagination is, therefore, 

 far the most important part of education. 



I use the term constructive imagination, 

 because that implies the creation or build- 

 ing of a new thing. The sculptor, for ex- 

 ample, imagines or conceives the perfect 

 form of a child ten years of age; he has 

 never seen such a thing, for a child perfect 

 in form is never pi-oduced; he has seen in 

 different children the elements of perfec- 

 tion, here one and there another. In his 

 imagination, he combines these elements 

 of the perfect form, which he has only 

 seen separated, and fi-om this picture in 

 his mind he carves the stone and in the 

 execution invariably loses his ideal— that 

 is, falls short of it or fails to express it. 



Constructive imagination is the great 

 power of the poet, as well as of the artist, 

 and the nineteenth century has convinced 

 us that it is also the great power of the 

 man of science, the investigator and the 

 natural philosopher. The educated world 

 needs to recognize the new varieties of con- 

 structive imagination. 



Zola, in 'La bete humaine, ' contrives 

 that ten persons, all connected with the 

 railroad from Paris to Havre, shall be 

 either murderers or murdered, or both, 

 within eighteen months; and he adds two 

 railroad slaughters criminally procured. 

 The conditions of time and place are in- 

 geniously imagined, and no detail is 

 omitted which can heighten the effect of 

 this homicidal fiction. 



Contrast this kind of constructive im- 

 agination with the kind which conceived 

 the great wells sunk in the solid rock be- 

 low Niagara that contain the turbines that 

 drive the dynamos, that generate the elec- 

 tric force that turns thousands of wheels 

 and lights thousands of lamps over hun- 

 dreds of sriuare miles of adjoining terri- 

 tory; or with the kind which conceives the 

 sending of human thought.s across 3000 

 miles of stormy sea instantaneously on noth- 

 ing more substantial than ethereal waves. 



There is going to be room in the hearts of 

 twentieth century men for a high admira- 

 tion of these kinds of imagination as well 

 as for that of the poet, artist or dramatist. 



It is one lesson of the nineteenth cen- 

 tury, then, that in every field of human 

 knowledge the constructive imagination 

 finds play— in literature, in history, in the- 

 ologj', in anthropology, and in the whole 

 field of physical and biological research. 



That great century has taught us that, 

 on the whole, the scientific imagination 

 is quite as productive for human service 

 as the literary or poetic imagination. The 

 imagination of Darwin or Pasteur, for ex- 

 ample, is as high and productive a form of 

 imagination as that of Dante, of Goethe, or 

 even Shakespeare, if we regai-d the human 

 uses which result from the exei-eise of 

 iniaginative powers, and mean by human 

 uses not meat and drink, clothes and shel- 

 ter, but the satisfaction of mental and 

 spiritual needs. 



It results from this brief survey that 

 the elements and means of cultivation are 

 much more niuuerous than they iised to be ; 

 so that it is not wise to say of any one ac- 

 quisition or faculty— with it cultivation be- 

 comes possible, without it impossible. 



The one acquisition may be imnxense, 

 and yet cultivation may not have been 

 attained. We have met artists who were 

 rude and uncouth, yet possessed a high de- 

 gree of technical skill and strong powers 

 of imagination. We have seen philanthro- 

 pists and statesmen whose minds have 

 played on great causes and great affairs, 

 and yet who lacked an accurate use of 

 their mother tongue, and had no historical 

 perspective or background of historical 

 knowledge. We must not expect syste- 

 matic education to produce multitudes 

 of highly cultivated and sjnnmetrically 

 developed persons; the multitudinous 

 product will always be imperfeqt, just 

 as there are no perfect trees, animals, 

 flowers or crv'stals. 



