SCIENCE AND THE POETS 75 



differencing genius and aim from every other mind. " 

 In chemistry, in botany, in physiology, in geology, 

 in mechanics, he found keys to unlock his enigmas. 

 No matter from what source the hint came, he was 

 quick to take it. The stress and urge of expres- 

 sion with him was very great, and he would fuse 

 and recast the most stubborn material. There is 

 hardly a fundamental principle of science that he 

 has not turned to ideal uses. "The law of nature 

 is alternation for evermore. Each electrical state 

 superinduces the opposite." "The systole and dia- 

 stole of the heart are not without their analogy in 

 the ebb and flow of love," and so on. In "Spir- 

 itual Laws" he gives a happy turn to the law of 

 gravitation : — 



" Let us draw a lesson from nature, which always 

 works by short ways. When the fruit is ripe it 

 falls. When the fruit is dispatched, the leaf falls. 

 The circuit of the waters is mere falling. The walk- 

 ing of man and all animals is a falling forward. All 

 our manual labor and works of strength, as prying, 

 splitting, digging, rowing, and so forth, are done 

 by dint of continual falling, and the globe, earth, 

 moon, comet, sun, star, fall for ever and ever." 



He is an evolutionist, not upon actual proof like 

 Darwin, but upon poetic insight. "Man," he says, 

 "carries the world in his head, the whole astron- 

 omy and chemistry suspended in a thought. Be- 

 cause the history of Nature is charactered in his 

 brain, therefore is he the prophet and discoverer of 

 her secrets. Every known fact in natural science 



