SCIENCE AND LITERATURE 55 



tions and emotions. In fact, the scientific treatment 

 of nature can no more do away with or supersede 

 the literary treatment of it — the view of it as seen 

 through our sympathies and emotions, and touched 

 hy the ideal, such as the poet gives us — than the 

 compound of the laboratory can take the place of 

 the organic compounds found in our food, drink, 

 and air. 



If Audubon had not felt other than a scientific 

 interest in the birds, — namely, a human interest, 

 an interest born of sentiment, — would he have ever 

 written their biographies as he did ? 



It is too true that the ornithologists of our day for 

 the most part look upon the birds only as so much 

 legitimate game for expert dissection and classifica- 

 tion, and hence have added no new lineaments to 

 Audubon's and Wilson's portraits. Such a man as 

 Darwin was full of what we may call the sentiment 

 of science. Darwin was always pursuing an idea, 

 always tracking a living, active principle. He is 

 full of the ideal interpretation of fact, science fired 

 with faith and enthusiasm, the fascination of the 

 power and mystery of nature. All his works have 

 a human and almost poetic side. They are un- 

 doubtedly the best feeders of literature we have yet 

 had from the field of science. His book on the earth- 

 worm, or on the formation of vegetable mould, reads 

 like a fable in which some high and beautiful phi- 

 losophy is clothed. How alive he makes the plants 

 and the trees! — shows all their movements, their 

 sleeping and waking, and almost their very dreams 



