18 ESSAYS IN NATION AL 1DKALISM.

tion^aaad^GjemuaJt came to Sir Isaac Kewton. when he sa,w
the apple fall, and there flashed across his brain the Law of
Gravity* It came to the Buddha as he sat through the
silent night in meditation, and hour by hour all things
became apparent to him ; he knew the exact circumstances
of all beings that have ever been in the endless and infinite
worlds; at the twentieth hour he received the divine
insight by which he saw all things within the space of the
infinite sakvalas as clearly as if they were close at hand ;
then came still deeper insight, and he perceived the cause
of sorrow and the path of knowledge, * He reached at last
the exhaustless source of truth.' The same is true of all
* revelation'; the Veda (sruti), the eternal Logos, * breathed
forth by Brahma,' in whom it survives the destruction
and creation of the Universe, is * seen/ or ' heard/ not

made, by its human authors........The reality of such

perception is witnessed to by every man within himself
upon rare occasions and on an infinitely smaller scale. It
is the inspiration of the poet. It is at once tho^.jrision of

of the natiiral philosopher.

There is a close analogy between the aims of art and of
science. Descriptive science is, of coxirse, concerned only
with the record of appearances; but art and theoretical
science have much in common. The imagination is required
for both; both illustrate that natural tendency to seek
•the one in the many, to formulate natural laws, which is
expressed in the saying that the human mind functions
,.aatoi:ally_tQazBxd^ unity. The aim of the Trained"" saenHSc'
or artistic imagination is to conceive (Concipio, lay hold of)
invent (invenio, to light upon) or imagine (visualise) some
unifying truth previously unsuspected or forgotten. The
theory of evolution or of electrons or atoms ;. the rapid dis-
covery (unveiling) by a mathematical genius of the answer to