Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 84.djvu/178

174 might have written a poem or a novel the characters of which would have been the inhabitants of the western coast of the Atlantic. He might have given to the world a prototype of "Peter Wilkins," or of a "Journey round the Moon." If he had been on bad terms with everybody he would have produced an early version of "Gulliver's Travels," for which his experience with men would have doubtless furnished him much first-hand material.

The imagination performs an important service to mankind when it takes the form of sympathy. This is an emotion that scarcely exists among the lower animals. When some of the individuals of a flock of birds or a herd of beasts are injured or killed their companions pay no attention to them or take flight. The compassion shown by man for his fellow-man can not be explained solely on the ground of selfishness or self-interest. It exists where this motive can have no conscious influence. To be human and humane mean nearly the same thing. But the sympathetic emotion avails little unless directed by science. Those who are suffering from disease or injuries are not as much benefited by the active sympathy of a hundred ignorant persons as by the knowledge of one who knows how to alleviate their ills. The ravages of disease were not checked until science discovered their causes and preventives. It is one thing to bewail the sad lot of man, as has so often been done in both prose and verse, and quite a different matter to teach him how to better his condition.

The imagination performs an exceedingly important service in the sphere of human activity when it is called hope or expectation. Mark Akenside wrote an interesting poem on the "Pleasures of the Imagination" and Thomas Campbell a fine one on the "Pleasures of Hope," in which these emotions are dealt with from the standpoint of the poet. It must be admitted that they embody much of truth. The man who has no expectations and is no longer lured by hope has outlived his usefulness. There is little in the future that can be called certain, when it depends on human conduct. Action is usually conditioned by hope and the most vigorous action is inspired by the most ardent hope. But unless hope is enforced by a resolute will and guided by insight it rarely leads to tangible results. The alchemists were inspired by hope, but most of their labor was fruitless. The Spaniards sought the fountain of youth and El Dorado, but found only disappointment and suffering and death. Imaginative literature that keeps close to facts is a European product; and Europe has made more progress in a hundred years than Asia in a thousand. Nobody but a European would think of writing a "Treatise on the Creative Imagination." Nor would an Asiatic be interested in the pleasures of hope or of the imagination. The Chinese who have the reputation of being the most practical people in the world have made more progress in the last two decades under