clusions. Physical science and its inventions
have not obviously advanced the delicacy of sentiments or of ethical
ideas. Chaucer's notion of a "parfit gentil knight," and his "poure
parsoun of a toun" could not be bettered for anything discovered in all
the five centuries since. It is not easy to see how science can
stimulate us to warm-hearted charity, to self-sacrificing love and
loyalty, to patriotism, and other manifestations of qualities which we
universally recognize as virtues, and as things without which human life
would be a dreary and intolerable waste. Without them suicide were
almost best. And the cultivation of the emotions belongs to literature,
not to objective science.

Will you pardon me if I repeat an illustration which has been used
before, though I forget where? There are two ways of regarding tears.
They may be the infinitely appealing outward and visible signs of some
great inward troubling of the spirit. They may "rise in the heart and
gather to the eyes" from "the depths of some divine despair." On the
other hand they may be what they were to a certain character in Balzac.
The physicist Baltazar retorts in answer to an outburst of tears, "Ah!
tears! I have analysed them; they contain a little phosphate of lime,
chloride of sodium, mucin, and water!" I do not happen to know if that
is a correct analysis, but I do know that both these aspects of tears
are true aspects. There is nothing contradictory about them. The one is
the aspect of objective science; the other--the human and moral
aspect--is that of literature. Is there any doubt which aspect
ultimately concerns us the more as human beings, livers of human lives?

There is no conflict between science and literature, especially between
science and poetry.

The astronomer tells us the immense distances and immense sizes of the
stars--great facts, most interesting facts; but the imagination of
literature gets hold of all the vastness and wonder and suggestion of
such a universe, and by the gift of expression it makes us realize them,
makes us feel an awe and admiration, which may at least lend some
chastening to minds which sorely need it. I believe that all true men
of science recognise this power of literature, and that they are no more
satisfied than the veriest poet with the mere facts of nature without
the beauty and marvel and moral stimulation. They do not wish that a
flower should be rendered less beautiful because they dissect it and