LITERATURE AND SCIENCE 



aside for nothing. Though all our gods totter and 

 fall, it must go its way. It dispels our illusions 

 because it clears our vision. It kills superstition 

 because it banishes our irrational fears. 



Mathematical and scientific truths are fixed and 

 stable quantities; they are like the inorganic com- 

 poxmds; but the truths of literatiure, of art, of reli- 

 gion, of philosophy, are in perpetual flux and trans- 

 formation, like the same compounds in the stream 

 of life. 



How much of the power and the charm of the 

 poetic treatment of nature lies in the fact that the 

 poet reads himself into the objects he portrays, and 

 thus makes everything alive and full of human 

 interest ! He sees — 



"The jocund day 

 Stand tip-toe on the misty mountain-top"; 



he sees theshighest peak of the mountain range to be — 



"The last to parley with the setting sun"; 



he sees — 



"The white arms out in the breakers tirelessly tossing "; 



while the power and the value of science is to free 

 itself from these tendencies, and see things in the 

 white light of reason. Science is the enemy of oiur 

 myth-making tendency, but it is the friend of our 

 physical well-being. 



Every material thing and process has its physics, 

 which, in most cases, seem utterly inadequate to 

 195 



