48 INDOOR STUDIES 



By wliicli remark he probably meant that artificial 

 knowledge obtained by the aid of instruments, and 

 tberefore by a kind of violence and inquisition, a 

 kind of dissecting and dislocating process, is less 

 innocent, is less sweet and wholesome, than natural 

 "■knowledge, the fruits of our natural faculties and 

 perceptions. And the reason is that physical sci- 

 ence pursued in and for itself results more and more 

 in barren analysis, becomes more and more sepa- 

 rated from human and living currents and forces, — 

 in fact, becomes more and more mechanical, and 

 rests in a mechanical conception of the universe. 

 And the universe, considered as a machine, how- 

 ever scientific it may be, has neither value to the 

 spirit nor charm to the imagination. 



The man of to-day is fortunate if he can attain 

 as fresh and lively a conception of things as did 

 Plutarch and Virgil. How alive the ancient ob- 

 servers made the world! They conceived of every- 

 thing as living, being, — the primordial atoms, space, 

 form, the earth, the sky. The stars and planets 

 they thought of as requiring nutriment, and as 

 breathing or exhaling. To them, fire did not con- 

 sume things, but fed or preyed upon them, like an 

 animal. It was not so much false science, as a 

 livelier kind of science, which made them regard the 

 peculiar quality of anything as a spirit. Thus there 

 was a spirit in snow; when the snow melted the 

 spirit escaped. Tliis spirit, says Plutarch, "is no- 

 thing but the sharp point and finest scale of the con- 

 gealed substance, endued with a virtue of cutting 



