Abstract
I HAVE read with delight Mr. Lamplugh's glowing appreciation (NATURE, February 28) of Browning's sympathy with scientific thought, and I agree with every word except that one searches vainly in “Paracelsus” for any clear appreciation of scientific research. For more than forty years I have felt that that poem breathes throughout the very spirit of scientific enthusiasm which is the mainspring of research. Paracelsus first “aspires” To contemplate undazzled some one truth, Its bearings and effects alone—at once What was a speck expands into a star, Asking a life to pass exploring thus. When he "attains" fame in the world he is struck with fear that his ideals may have declined with his lost youth and hopes, and exclaims: Would I were sure to win Some startling secret in their stead, a tincture Of force to flush old age with youth, or breed Gold, or imprison moonbeams till they change To opal shafts!—only that, hurling it Indignant back, I might convince myself My aims remained supreme and pure as ever! In mature age he "aspires" again, looking back over more disappointments than triumphs, and the old passion swells up once more, struggling under the rein of reason. And I betake myself to study again Till patient searchings after hidden lore Half wring some bright truth from its prison; my frame Trembles, my forehead's veins swell out, my hair Tingles for triumph. Slow and sure the morn Shall break on my pent room and dwindling lamp And furnace dead, and scattered earths and ores; When, with a failing heart and throbbing brow, I must review my captured truth, sum up Its value, trace what ends to what begins, Its present power with its eventual bearings, Latent affinities, the views it opens, And its full length in perfecting my scheme. I view it sternly circumscribed, cast down From the high place my fond hopes yielded it, Proved worthless. Finally, when he "attains" to wisdom while dying in poverty and neglect, Paracelsus, "the searching and impetuous soul," reviews his career of discovery and traces the course of Nature from the time when The centre fire heaves underneath the Earth And the Earth changes like a human face, and onward in a fine description of the origin of land, the advent of plants and animals and their development, Suggesting some one creature yet to make, Some point where all those scattered rays should meet Convergent in the faculties of man.
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MILL, H. Robert Browning as an Exponent of Research. Nature 115, 424 (1925). https://doi.org/10.1038/115424a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/115424a0
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