The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1893-12-10
A TEAR AND A FAREWELL,

Helena = &c. y lsvS
A FEAR AND A FAREWELL
In his a%ppreciative and poetical "Fare
we'll to the White City" in the Cosmo'
politan for December, the French writer,
Paul Bourget, concludes his musings
with this speculation:
Does democracy respect disinterested
thought, the cult Of art beyond its utili-
tartan phase, letters or scientific specu-
lation incapable Of industrial applica-
tion? May not that implaca-
bic science DO the murderer of the hu-
man heart and by developing in extreme
the positive side Of knowledge, will it
not diminish, ever destroy its other as
poets? Is 1t not destined to dry up the
source Of mysteries, where for ages the
soul has quenched it's thirst and found
it's vitality and soiace? viii the reign
Of science have q poetryi Will it have
q religion?"
NJ. Bourgeois forebodings are not new.
They are common to literary men who
are ignorant Ut science and who have
not yet learned that science Is the hand
maiden of art, Of letters, of poetry and
of religion.
The. great fair itself, wh,ch N. Bour-
get admirers 30 much for it's artistic
beauty, owes Its conception and it's OK
ecution to science. It was science that
gave US the beautiful grounds; it was
science that made possible, by the in
vention Of "staff" for building purposes,
those classic structures that else would
have died in the artists brain. It was
science working through electricity that
made those summer evenings on the
lake shore like a dream Of fairyland;
that gave US the wondrous beauty of
the electric fountains; the search lights
with their weird and startling effects
in short that made the fair a possibility
and q success.
Great was the utilitarianism Of the
fair; wonderful was the display OF mans
ingenuity in numberless inventions, yet
greater and more wonderful than all
else was the tribute of science to beauty,
that perfection of beauty that is only
possible through the development Of
science. The White city properly stud
led and understood, it seems to US, is the
complete answer to M. Bourgeois uneasy
questlonings.
The White city, however. is not the
only answer to suoh speculations. All
human experience puts them at rest.
In his great work on "Eduoation," the
~profoundest Of living thinkers, Herbert
Spencer, meets this view of
science that is held BY men of the Bour-
get type, who have been educated &C.
cording to false and narrow standards.
The sculptor, says MI. Spencer, repares
himself for his art by studying the
bones and muscles of the human frame,
and the artistic pose Of his figures de
ponds on his knowledge OF the laws of
gravitation; the painter studies the sci
ence Of drawing and design to get his
perspectives and his proportions true;
the musician only idealizes the natural
language Of emotion and consequently
music must be good or bad according as
it conforms to the laws OF this natural
language; poetry, like music, has it's
root in those natural modes OF express
sion which accompany deep feeling and
to be good it must respect those laws Of
nervous action which excited speech
obeys. And not only, says the philoso-
pher, is it that the artist, of whatever
kind, cannot produce a truthful work
without he understands the laws Of the
phenomena he represents, but it is that
he must also understand how the minds
OF spectators or listeners will be affected
by the several peculiarities of his work
a question in psychology. These gen.
eral principles cannot be fully under
stood and applied unless the artist secs
how they follow from the laws of mind.
"Will the reign of science have a
poetry" ~mournfully asks Bourget. Lis
to the nswer Of Spencer: "Whoever
will dig into Hugh Miller's works on
geology, or read Mr.. Lewes's Seaside
Studiee,' will perceive hat science ex-
cites poetry rather than extinguishes it.
And whoever will contemplate the life
of Goethe will see that the poet and the
man Of science can coexist in equal ac-
tivity. Think you that a drop Of water,
which to the vulgar eye is but a drop of
water, loses anything in the eye Of a
physicist who knows that its elements
sre held together by q force which, il
suddenly liberated, would produce a
flash Of lightning? Think you that
what is carelessly looked upon by the
uninitiated as a mere snowflake does not
suggest higher associations to one who
has seen through a microscope the won
drously varied and elegant forms OF
snow-crystals7 Think you that the
rounded rock marked with parallel
scratches calls up as much poetry in IN
ignorant mind as in the mind Of u geol-