e leaf were
extended and became boughs and branches; each filament became a leaf
and spray; the imagination revealed each petal and stamen and pistil,
as after the leaf type, and gave a new philosophy to the science of
herbs and shrubs. When a pistachio tree in Paris with only female
blossoms suddenly bore nuts, the mind of a scientist suggested that
some other rich man had imported a tree with male flowers, and careful
search revealed that tree many miles away.

And in every department of science this faculty bridges over chasms
between discovered truths. Even Newton's discovery was the gift of
imagination. When the eyes of the scientist saw the falling apple it
was his vision faculty that leaped through space and saw the falling
moon. When the western trade winds, blowing for weeks, had cast the
drift wood upon the shores of Spain, Columbus' eyes fell not only upon
the strange wood but also upon a pebble caught in the crevice. But his
imagination leaped from the pebble to the Western continent of which
the stone was a part, and from the tree to the forest in which it
grew.

This faculty has performed a similar work in the realm of mechanics.
Watt tells us that his engine worked in his mind years before it
worked in his shop. In his biography, Milton recognizes the beauty of
the trees and flowers he culled from earth's landscapes and gardens,
but in his "Paradise Lost," his imagination beheld an Eden fairer than
any scene ever found on earth. Napoleon believed that every battle was
won by the imagination. While his soldiers slept, the great Corsican
marshaled his troops, hurled them against the enemy, and won the
victory in his mind the night before the battle was fought. Even the
orator like Webster must be described as one who sees his argument in
the air before he writes it upon the page, just as Handel thought he
heard the music falling from the sky more rapidly than his hand could
fasten the notes upon the musical bars. Thus every new tool and
picture, every new temple or law or reform, has been the imagination's
gift to man.

Nor has the case been different with men in the humbler walks of life.
Multitudes are doomed to delve and dig. Three-fourths of the race live
on the verge of poverty. The energies of most men are consumed in
supporting the wants of the body. It is given to multitudes to descend
into the coal mine ere the day is risen, to emerge only when night has
fallen. Other multitudes toil in the smi