44 INDOOK STUDIES 



it that the hunter, the trapper, the traveler, the 

 farmer, or even the schoolboy, can often tell us 

 more of what we want to know about the bird, the 

 flower, the animal, than the professor in all the 

 pride of his nomenclature? Why, but that these 

 give us a glimpse of the live creature as it stands 

 related to other things, to the whole life of nature, 

 and to the human heart, while the latter shows it 

 to us as it stands related to some artificial system 

 of human knowledge. 



"The world is too much with us," said Words- 

 worth, and he intimated that our science and our 

 civilization had put us " out of tune " with nature. 



"Great God I I 'd rather be 

 A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn ; 

 So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, 

 Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn, 

 Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea. 

 Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn." 



To the scientific mind such language is simply 



nonsense, as are those other lines of the bard of 



Grasmere, in which he makes his poet — 



" Contented if he might enjoy 

 The things which others understand." 



Enjoynient is less an end in science than it is in 

 literature. A poem or other work of the imagina- 

 tion that failed to give us the joy of the spirit 

 would be of little value, but from a work of science 

 we expect only the satisfaction which comes with 

 increased stores of exact knowledge. 



Yet it may be questioned if the distrust with 

 which science and literature seem to be more and 



