UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 
account for the thing as it stands to us. Life is a 
flower, and the analysis of it does not tell us why we 
are so moved by it. The moral, the esthetic, the 
spiritual values which we find in life and in nature 
are utterly beyond the range of physical science, and 
I suppose it is because the physicochemical expla- 
nation of the phenomenon of life takes no account, 
and can take no account, of these, that it leaves us 
cold and uninterested. Spencer with his irrefragable 
mechanistic theories leaves us indifferent, while 
Bergson, with his “‘Creative Evolution,” sets mind 
and spirit all aglow. One interprets organic nature 
in terms of matter and motion, the other interprets 
it in terms of life and spirit. 
Science is the critic and doctor of life, but never 
its inspirer. It enlarges the field of literature, but its 
aims are unliterary. The scientific explanation of 
the great problems — life, mind, consciousness — 
seems strangely inadequate; they are like the scien- 
tific definition of light as vibrations or electric oscil- 
lations in the ether of space, which would not give a 
blind man much idea of light. The scientific method 
is supreme in its own sphere, but that sphere is not 
commensurate with the whole of human life. Life 
flowers in the subjective world of our sentiments, 
emotions, and aspirations, and to this world liter- 
ature, art, and religion alone have the key. 
