The poet, seeing by the heart, realises the inexpressible and strived to
give it expression. His imagination soars, where the sight of others
fails, and his news of realm unknown finds voice in rhyme and metre. The
path of the scientific man may be different, yet there is some likeness
between the two pursuits. Where visible light ends, he still follows the
invisible. Where the note of the audible reaches the unheard, even there
he gathers the tremulous message. That mystery which lies behind the
expressed, is the object of his questioning also; and he, in his
scientific way, attempts to render its abstruse discoveries into human
speech.
This vast abode of nature is built in many wings, each with its own
portal. The physicist, the chemist, and the biologist entering by
different doors, each one his own department of knowledge, comes to
think that this is his special domain, unconnected with that of any
other. Hence has arisen our present rigid division of phenomena, into
the worlds of the inorganic, vegetal, and sentient. But this
attitude of mind is philosophical, may be denied. We must remember that
all enquiries have as their goal the attainment of knowledge in its
entirety. The partition walls between the cells in the great laboratory
are only erected for a time to aid this search. Only at that point where
all lines of investigation meet, can the whole truth be found.
Both poet and scientific worker have set out for the same goal, to find
a unity in the bewildering diversity. The difference is that the poet
thinks little of the path, whereas the scientific man must not neglect.
The imagination of the poet has to be unrestricted. The intuitions of
emotion cannot be established by rigid proof. He has, therefore, to use
the language of imagery, adding constantly the words 'as if.'
The road that the scientific man has to tread is on the other hand very
rugged, and in his pursuit of demonstration he must pay a severe
restraint on his imagination. His constant anxiety is lest he should be
self-deceived. He has, therefore, at every step to compare his own
thought with the external fact. He has remorselessly to abandon all in
which these are not agreed. His reward is that he gets, however little
is certain, forming a strong foundation for what is yet to come. Even by
this path of self-restraint and verification, however, he is making for
a region surpassing wonder. In the range of that invisible light, gross
objects cease to be a barrier, and force and matter become less
aesthetic. When the veil is suddenly lifted, upon the vision hitherto
unsuspected, he may for a moment lose his accustomed self-restraint and,
exclaim "not 'as if'--but the thing itself!"