As with nearly everything else, the wonder of the world grows the
more we grasp its history. The wonder of life grows the more we
consider the chaos of fire and death out of which it came; the
wonder of man grows the more we peer into the abyss of geologic time
and of low bestial life out of which he came.

Not a tree, not a shrub, not a flower, not a green thing growing,
not an insect of an hour, but has a background of a vast aeon of
geologic and astronomic time, out of which the forces that shaped it
have emerged, and over which the powers of chaos and darkness have
failed to prevail.

The modern geologist affords us one of the best illustrations of the
uses of the scientific imagination that we can turn to. The
scientific imagination seems to be about the latest phase of the
evolution of the human mind. This power of interpretation of
concrete facts, this Miltonic flight into time and space, into the
heavens above, and into the bowels of the earth beneath, and bodying
forth a veritable history, a warring of the powers of light and
darkness, with the triumph of the angels of light and life, makes
Milton's picture seem hollow and unreal. The creative and poetic
imagination has undoubtedly already reached its high-water mark. We
shall probably never see the great imaginative works of the past
surpassed or even equaled. But in the world of scientific discovery
and interpretation, we see the imagination working in new fields and
under new conditions, and achieving triumphs that mark a new epoch
in the history of the race. Nature, which once terrified man and
made a coward of him, now inspires him and fills him with love and
enthusiasm.