Tag on to the previous post I deny altogether that this is fantastic or even mystical. We may have some mysticism later on; but this fairy-tale language about things is simply rational and agnostic. It is the only way to express a clear and definite perception that one thing is quite distinct from another; that there is no logical connection between flying and laying eggs. The man who talks about a law also cant see who is the mystic. Nay, the ordinary scientific man is strictly a sentimentalist in this essential sense, that he is swept away by mere associations. He has so often seen birds fly and lay eggs that he feels as if there must be some dreamy, tender connection between the two ideas, whereas theres not. A sentimentalist might shed tears at the smell of apple-blossoms, because, by a dark association of his own, they remind him of boyhood. So the materialist professor (though he conceals his tears) is yet a sentimentalist, because, by a dark association of his own, apple-blossoms remind him of apples. But the cool rationalist from fairyland does not see why, in the abstract, the apple tree should not grow crimson tulips; it sometimes does in his country.
Posted on: Wed, 29 Jan 2014 16:11:15 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015