SCIENCE AND POETRY by I. A. RICHARDS _Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge. Author of “Principles of Literary Criticism.”_ KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & Co. Ltd. Broadway House; 68-74 Carter Lane, London, E.C. _Printed in Great Britain by_ R. I. SEVERS, CAMBRIDGE. CONTENTS PAGE I. The General Situation 1 II. The Poetic Experience 7 III. What is Valuable 28 IV. The Command of Life 38 V. The Neutralization of Nature 43 VI. Poetry and Beliefs 55 VII. Some Contemporary Poets 68 [Footnotes] [Transcriber’s Note] _The future of poetry is immense, because in poetry, where it is worthy of its high destinies, our race, as time goes on, will find an ever surer and surer stay. There is not a creed which is not shaken, not an accredited dogma which is not shown to be questionable, not a received tradition which does not threaten to dissolve. Our religion has materialised itself in the fact, in the supposed fact; it has attached its emotion to the fact, and now the fact is failing it. But for poetry the idea is everything._--Matthew Arnold. I. The General Situation Man’s prospects are not at present so rosy that he can neglect any means of improving them. He has recently made a number of changes in his customs and ways of life, partly with intention, partly by accident. These changes are involving such widespread further changes that the fairly near future is likely to see an almost complete reorganization of our lives, in their intimate aspects as much as in their public. Man himself is changing, together with his circumstances; he has changed in the past, it is true, but never perhaps so swiftly. His circumstances are not known to have ever changed so much or so suddenly before, with psychological as well as with economic, social and political dangers. This suddenness threatens us. Some parts of human nature resist change more than others. We risk disaster, if some of our customs change, while others which should change with them stay as they are.