To the man of science, on the other hand, nature is a molecular
mechanism. He wishes to understand its construction, and mode of action.
He enquires into its particular parts with his intellect, and tries to
penetrate the illusion in order to lay bare its cause. Heedless of its
power and beauty, he remains uninfluenced by sentiment, and mistrusting
the part played by his own mind, he tends to destroy the habit of
personification.

Hence that opposition between science and poetry which Coleridge pointed
out. The spirit of poetry is driven away by the spirit of science, just
as Eros fled before the curiosity of Psyche.

How can I enjoy the perfume of a rose if I am thinking of its cellular
tissue? I grow blind to the beauty of the Venus de Medicis when I
measure its dimensions, or analyse its marble. What do I care for the
drama if I am bent on going behind the scenes and examining the stage
machinery? The telescope has banished Phoebus and Diana from our
literature, and the spectroscope has vulgarised the stars.

Will science make an end of poetry as Renan and many others have
thought? Surely not? Poetry is quite as natural and as needful to
mankind as science. All men are poetical, as they are scientific, more
or less.

It might even be argued that poetry is for the general, for the man as a
man; while science is for the particular, for the man as a specialist;
and that poetry is a higher and more essential boon than science,
because it speaks to the heart, not merely to the head, and keeps alive
the celestial as well as the terrestrial portion of our nature.