Page:The sanity of William Blake.djvu/20

 Rh deavour to be truthful, reveals an essential untruthfulness; for it is constantly compelled to disregard individual claims and ideal characteristics for the sake of giving weight to its factual generalizations. To classify and define is easy; and it has for some people the supreme advantage of discounting the value of higher thought. To discover the untruthfulness of scientific expression when dealing with matters that forbid definition and measurement, often requires of the scientific teacher a very genius of honesty. When, for instance, the biologist assures us that we must regard the bird as an aberrant form of reptile, and when he sets before us the array of facts upon which he justifies his claim, which facts there is no disputing, we understand him and his classification of the bird and the reptile so clearly that we have no difficulty in classifying himself. He belongs mind and soul to Facts. But when that genius arises, who, while giving full value to the evidences of the museum and the dissecting-room, can avoid the contamination of his soul, and sing—yes, sing—of the lark's supremacy to the law of gravity, and in this song uplift man's ever-young soul