The man recognised the portrait of himself over the mantelpiece or
the medicine bottles on the table, like the dying lover in Browning.
In other words, science so far had steadily solidified things;
Newton had measured the walls and ceiling and made a calculus
of their three dimensions. Darwin was already arranging
the animals in rank as neatly as a row of chairs, or Faraday
the chemical elements as clearly as a row of medicine bottles.
From the middle of the eighteenth century to the middle of the nineteenth,
science was not only making discoveries, but all the discoveries
were in one direction. Science is still making discoveries;
but they are in the opposite direction.
For things are rather different when the man in the bed
next looks at the bedroom. Not only is the rose-bush still
very obvious; but the other things are looking very odd.
The perspective seems to have gone crooked; the walls seem to vary
in measurement till the man thinks he is going mad. The wall-paper
has a new pattern, of strange spirals instead of round dots.
The table seems to have moved by itself across the room and thrown
the medicine bottles out of the window.
Pages:
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233