Southwest-sentinel. [volume] (Silver City, N.M.) 1883-189?, 1894-04-10
Literature and Science. .

not only do not, in the least, regret
our ignorance, but all of our hopes
finds refuge there, in the, thought
that chance conceals' an endless
series of happy possibilities. The
many signs of old age which our
epoch, fatigued, ,overworked and
burdened with years and expert
ence, exhibits; the excessive refine
ment of the critical sense, joined
to the great natural sources of
poetry; art, plunged from the
fruitful darkness of instinct into
the frozenslight of reflection; the
universal diffusion of talent in this
democratic period, debased by
usage aud become universal cur
rency; the pyramids of books piled
on books, furnish a spectacle filled
with menacing problems for the
future of literature, as of society.
"A savage state is needed every
four or FIVE hundred years to re-
revive the world. Now that there
are no more savages in Europe,
the workmen will do that work.
This will be called the social revo-
luton. Burned libraries, broken
printing presses, all humanity, in
order to be equal, bound to a mat
erial need which, little by little,
will establish the equilibrium be-
tween mind and body, taking
away from the too numerous ar
istocratic idlers the time to dream
and to write-behold, in these, the
solutionss''in.. conformity with the
analogy of the past as with the
tendencies of the present, it to
probable; the danger is serious.
However, this catastrophe is not
the worst destiny which literature
has to fear. Revolutions are like
storms, which at once destroy and
revive. Let Jus suppose a socinl
disorder: = At the close of a longer
or shorter period ofi.anarchy and
ruin, a regular life will be reborn;
the age of gold will recommence,
a new classical period will bloom.
Literature has for jealous neigh
Dor and an enemy, peaceful pow
er, which it does not fear, and
which it even takes, the innocent
dreamer for a very3useful ally;
but whose silent and sure prog
ress drives it back step by step,
and creates for it's peril as grave
as the noisy menace of social
revolution. That enemy is sci
ence.
This it is, or, at least, its infu-
ence, which, since 1872, has re-
placed a too formal education
with a not less excessive idea Of
the real, substituting the worship
of the useful for that of ideal truth
and the beautiful. 1t is the scien-
tific spirit which, by means of
special instruction, modern in
struction and other innovations,
anti-classical and anti-literary,
will soon eliminate the older clas-
sical learning and swith this the
taste; the power of creating and
the talent of rendering, in Ian
guage pleasing to the whole liter
airy world, ideas of universal inter
est. 1t is science, or, in order
not to take this directly for the
cause, it is the glare of its..triumph
which, causing the naturalists to
lose their heads, has persuaded
them that the art of literature
should be subject to its, formulas,
it's methods, it's vocabulary, and
has multiplied the so-cRlled "scien-
t1fc studies" the Enquiries" the
documents" and finally inspired
M. lola with the extraordinary
pretension of being no more a
thinker, like Moliere, nor an OBJ
server, like Balzac, but the autheI
of real experiences in. the manner
of a Claude Bernard.
Science is sufficient unto itself
1t finds in the worship of truth, at
rational as positive, all that it de-
sires or needs of religious life. II
scorns, as child's play, the pur-
suit of that sort of absolute salts
faction which art procures, and as
a feminine weakness, the restless
curiosity for the unknown. But
it is not the less true that the
work of science, being collective
has called to its assistance the
humblest talent. Every contri
button is precious to it. It is
above all, the sort Of activity
which contributes to the demo
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