Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 84.djvu/176

172 writings while there are few who do not find "Alice in Wonderland" exceedingly interesting. The little volume is so "excruciatingly silly," that we laugh over its absurdities without knowing why. Goethe was probably the only poet of modern times whose fame is world-wide and whose work in science was of a high order. But as science is progressive many of his ideas have become a part of its history and may be said to be outgrown. Moreover, as the world can not or does not believe that a man can be great in more than one or two departments, Goethe is known as a man of science only to specialists. Then too the interest in facts is confined to few, while fiction is attractive to the great mass of mankind. The late Professor Shaler was a man of similar type. He ranked high as a scientist and wrote dramas that contain many notable passages. But this sphere of his mental activity is not generally known. It is probable that no man engaged in research and investigation is a scientist "all through." Benjamin Franklin is an interesting case. From his earliest youth he seems to have had his mind almost exclusively on practical matters. Albeit, under the influence of Whitefield's fervent appeals he emptied his purse into the contribution box in spite of his first resolution to give nothing, then to give at least very little.

Many persons seem to be unable to distinguish at all times between the products of the imagination and concepts based on observed phenomena. Sir Isaac Newton is regarded as the founder of mathematical physics and physical astronomy. We are astounded at his marvelous intellectual acumen when we consider the inadequate instruments with which he had to work. Yet he devoted much time to theological speculation and wrote many pages that are mere puerilities. So feeble are they that M. Biot professed to believe that they were the productions of his dotage. But he was mistaken. Newton also spent a good deal of time on the writings of the alchemists and tried to discover the philosopher's tincture. There was evidently a large measure of the mystic in him. There was a good deal of similarity between his mind and that of Swedenborg. In many things the latter was thoroughly practical and a master of much useful information; but his mystical vagaries often led him far astray. To such an extent did Kant find this to be the case that he characterized him as the prince of visionaries. Sometimes men adhere to a creed adopted in early life and refuse to modify it no matter how much new evidence is brought to their attention. It is usually easier to defend an accepted belief because we have the materials ready to hand than to test the data which might lead to its abandonment.

Charles Darwin relates, in his autobiography, that up to his thirtieth year he was very fond of poetry, and even as a schoolboy took great delight in Shakespeare. But in his later years he could not endure to read a line of poetry, and on attempting to reread Shakespeare's plays