it.

In exchange for the mystery we have truth, which excites other emotions
and ideas. Moreover, the mystery is only pushed further back. We cannot
tell what the elements really are; they will never be more than symbols
to us, and all nature at bottom will ever remain a mystery to us: an
organised illusion. Think, too, of the innumerable worlds amongst the
stars, and the eternity of the past and future. Whether we look into the
depths of space beyond the reach of telescope and microscope, or
backward and forward along the vistas of time, we shall find ourselves
surrounded with an impenetrable mystery in which the imagination is free
to rove.

Science, far from destroying, will foster and develop poetry. It is the
part of the scientific to serve the poetical spirit by providing it with
fresh matter. The poet will take the truth discovered by the man of
science, and purify it from vulgar associations, or stamp it with a
beautiful and ideal form.

Consider the vast horizons opened to the vision of the poet by the
investigations of science and the doctrine of evolution. At present the
spirit of science is perhaps more active than the spirit of poetry, but
we are passing through an unsettled to a settled period. Tennyson was
the voice of the transition; but the singer of evolution is to come, and
after him the poet of truth.

If we allowed the scientific to drive away the poetical spirit, we
should have to go in quest of it again, as the forlorn Psyche went in
search of Eros. It is necessary to the proper balance and harmony of our
minds, to the purification of our feelings, and the right enjoyment of