If the contemplation of
nature and the scientific analysis of nature are meant to have any
effect upon humanity at all, it seems as though both were intended to
stimulate our wonder and to torture us with the desire for solving the
enigma.
Perhaps the difference between the poetical view and the scientific
view of nature is this--that while scientific investigation stimulates
a man to penetrate the secret as far as he can, with the noble desire
to contribute what minute discoveries he may to the solution of the
problem, the poetical contemplation of nature tends to produce in the
mind a greater tranquillity of emotion. The scientist must feel that,
even when he has devoted his whole life to investigation, he has but
helped on the possibilities of solution a little. There can be no sense
of personal fruition as long as the abyss remains unplumbed; and
therefore nature is to him like a blind and blank mystery that reveals
its secrets slowly and almost reluctantly, and defies investigation.
Whereas the poet may rather feel that he at this precise point of time
may master and possess the emotion that nature can provide for his
soul, and that he is fully blessed if the sight of the mountain-head
above the sunset cloud-banks, the green gloom of the summer woodland,
the lake lashed with slanting storm, gives him a sense of profound
emotion, and fills him to the brim with the pure potion of beauty.
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