ABSTRACT
WE are often told that to contemplate a landscape or to observe any natural phenomenon—a flower, a bird, or a sunset—is strictly an intuition, an exercise of the aesthetic activity, without the participation of the logical faculty. It is admitted, of course, that such pure intuitions are rare; they are almost inevitably blended with an intellectual process, and the fusion of these two elements forms a new and more complex intuition. Further, it is argued that a poet can multiply these intuitions to an indefinite number, so that in his capacity as artist, his whole view of Nature may be intuitional—his logic is of value only so far as it assists or directs his feelings. While the philosopher’s duty is to unify, impersonally, the facts which underlie the phenomena of Nature, the poet’s business is to express the impressions which Nature makes to him personally, through the medium of the senses. Hence Nature—whether in her totality or in her meanest flower that blows—is merely an object for science or philosophy, unless she suggests or reflects human emotions. A poet may express the beauty of a rose in terms of feeling alone; or, if the short life of this beauty suggests the brevity of human life, this “thought” is itself emotional. Poetry, however, would be a simple matter if it were confined to the expression of
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may;
