July 31, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



127 



own thougM upon science, and marshalling 

 facts in great divisions whicli embody their 

 ideas of the order and dependencies of na- 

 ture. 



It is no new thought that scientific study- 

 makes a draft upon the imagination. This 

 aspect of science allies it to art and litera- 

 ture. Music and mathematics have not in- 

 frequently been congeners in the same 

 gifted genius, and mathematics is becoming 

 an indispensable adjunct to every branch 

 of science. Maxwell, perhaps the greatest 

 modern physicist, often indulged in poetic 

 composition, and his poetry was of no mean 

 order. It may be readily granted that the 

 scientific imagination is cultivated and 

 strengthened by exercise in the related 

 realm of poetry. The intricate and fasci- 

 nating subject of electricity is greatly in- 

 debted to the imaginative faculty of the 

 great discoverers in this field. It is an un- 

 fruitful science that has not been enriched 

 by the scientific imagination. 



In another respect science fosters human 

 and ethical interests. It compels the rest- 

 less struggle after ideals. It holds up an 

 ideal condition which is the goal of its am- 

 bition, the one thing which it must attain 

 before it can rest content. Hence the scien- 

 tific worker studies sources of error and 

 seeks to eliminate them. By repeated at- 

 tacks he approaches nearer and nearer to 

 the citadel which he tries to capture. And 

 after all is done he recognizes that the ob- 

 ject of his endeavor has not been fully at- 

 tained. It is much like the chase after the 

 foot of the rainbow, which ever moves on- 

 ward as it is pursued. Says Huxley : '' Men 

 are said to be partial judges of themselves. 

 * * * Life seems terribly foreshortened 

 as they look back, and the mountain they 

 set themselves to climb in youth turns out 

 to be a mere spur of immeasurably higher 

 ranges when with failing breath they reach 

 the top." But it is infinitely better to have 

 reached the top of a spur even than never 



to have begun the ascent. The whole 

 world has been called to a broader outlook 

 and a grander vision by those who have 

 reached the spurs and higher ranges. Their 

 effort after ideals ennobles and humbles. 

 It chastens while it subdues. 



In some respects science is more human- 

 istic than the humanities. Here and there 

 ancient literature enforces the conception 

 of the reign of law. It presents the human 

 captive vainly prolonging the struggle to es- 

 cape it. Tantalus-like, the unattainable ever 

 eludes the seeker. Prometheus bound is a 

 fit symbol of circumscribed humanity. The 

 same thought, which has always impressed 

 itself upon the race and worn itself deep 

 into human experience, is enforced in Holy 

 Writ: " If I take the wings of the morn- 

 ing, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the 

 sea ; even there shall thy hand lead and 

 thy right hand hold me." 



Now science illustrates and emphasizes 

 the reign of law. It has cleared away the 

 mystical, the fortuituous, the anthropologi- 

 cal, and has given us instead the orderly 

 and progressive sequences of natural phe- 

 nomena. It has in no way weakened the 

 necessity felt for a First Cause, but it pre- 

 sents the activity of that Cause under a new 

 and more rational aspect. It presents a 

 Creator who sees the end from the begin- 

 ning, who does not need to hold the world 

 in leash or drive it with a goad, but who 

 endowed matter with certain capabilities 

 and infused into it divine energy, so that it 

 can run its ceaseless changes down the 

 grooves of time. Science has replaced a 

 world of humanistic divinities by a world 

 of energy and law. Instead of the caprice 

 of classical gods and goddesses, it has sup- 

 plied a physical organism devised and elab- 

 orated by infinite wisdom. Man has there- 

 fore learned to order his physical life so as 

 to conform to the laws of the physical 

 world, or if he elects to transgress those 

 laws he does not expect the interposition 



