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Untitled Article
examined , is more seeming than real . Passion cannot exist without an object ; and the expression of passion must involve vivid and touching allusions to the objects on which it rests . We have defined the end of Poetry to be the excitement , within pleasurable limits , of emotion ; and its instrumentality , the revival
of past impressions . The only peculiarity in the case of the Poetry of passion and sentiment is this ; that the poet depicts himself , his own mind , character and fate , with the colour they throw on outward objects , and the reflex action of outward objects on them . It is still an individual reality , which is embodied , and which is made the instrument , through sympathy and association , of awakening kindred feelings in the minds , to which it is presented .
II , Science considers all objects under a totally different point of view from Poetry : it is the classification of individuals , the comprehension of general facts . Its object is not , by the exhibition of objects , in their individual proprieties , as they act upon the senses and feelings , to excite emotion ; but , through the medium of general propositions , to furnish knowledge , and to grasp as xnany particulars at once as possible . Neither can Poetry
furnish the individual facts , which Science classifies ; since Poetry does not exhibit them as they appear after continued examination and comparison , but according to their first impression on the mind , as they are felt and conceived by it in highly excited moods . This service is rendered to Science by simple history , which collects and describes the facts , subsequently classified , compared , and reasoned upon by Science .
The proper and original force of the term Science , may be more easily understood , by attending to the distinction between the two Latin verbs nosco and scio . Nosco expresses the knowledge which we acquire of an individual through the medium of the senses ; whereas the object of scio may in every case , if I am not mistaken , be rendered by a proposition . The knowledge expressed by fiasco
is more minute , but it is individual ; that expressed by scio is what results from discerning the relation between the subject and the predicate of a proposition ; it is conversant , therefore , with classes of ideas and the use of general terms . It is from the last of these verbs , or rather from its abstract state scientia , that our
word science is derived ; and etymology in this instance , points out to us the true use and application of the term . Science is any collection of general propositions , expressing important facts con * eerning extensive classes of phenomena ; and the more abstract the form of expression , the more purel y it represents the general fact , to the total exclusion of such individual peculiarities as are not comprised in it—the more perfect the scientific language becomes . Her * then we see the precise point of distinction between Pottry and Scienc * . Poetry exhibits nature in detail , as it strike *
Untitled Article
Poetry , tfeiento , and Philascphg . 9 ft
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1834, page 327, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2633/page/15/
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