and not those of unpoetic men. He sees each fact as an inevitable step in the path of the creator. He is the right classifier, seeing things grouped, and following the grand way of nature. And never did any science originate, but by a poetic perception. 'A great natural philosopher without this gift is impossible.' The schoolmen think they are logical, and the poet to be whimsical, illogical.Do they think there is any chance or choice in what he sees and says? He knows that he did not make his thought; no, his thought made him and made the sun and stars also. And it is because his memory is too strong for him, does not hold him to routine and lists of words, that he is still capable of seeing. For a wise surrender to the current of nature, a noble passion which will not let us halt, but hurries us into the stream of things, makes us truly know. [Passion is logical, and I note that the vine, symbol of Bacchus, which intoxicates the world, is the most geometrical of all plants.] And was not this the meaning of Socrates, who preferred artists because they truly knew?."
Page 28, note 1.
"We are led to believe a lieWhen we see with, not through, the eye,Which was born in a night to perish in a night,When the soul slept in beams of light."William Blake, Songs of Innocence.
Page 29, note 1. Here Mr. Emerson's preference for sculpture over painting appears.
Page 29, note 2. Among some fragmentary verses printed in the Appendix to the Poems, under the title of "May Morning," are these:—
When the purple flame shoots up,And Love ascends his throne,
