the scientists, tends on the contrary to repel those who love æsthetic and metaphysical unreality, as I do.
Had he been rather a philosopher than an artist I could willingly have pardoned him: I could indeed have praised him without reserve. But his philosophy, it must be confessed, does not amount to much. In its essence it consists of the old Greek idea of the world as a living organism; and his acceptance of this idea is inconsistent with his criticism of those thinkers whose theories are not supported by experiment. Now a man who has not reached that aristocratic intellectuality which treats ideas as of supreme interest in themselves, without the least thought of their relation to facts, has not attained the greatest heights.
Perhaps, too, those delicate lovers of strange souls who, like Walter Pater, have admitted the wondrous Leonardo into their intimate circle of great spirits, have not fully realized that this man was too much inclined to practical and mathematical interests. Much of his research was devoted to the invention of machinery and apparatus for canals or sluices, or to the construction of engines which could kill or defend, or to the designing of wonderful vehicles. He is forever saying that one must think of practical utility; and much as he loved knowledge in itself,
