Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Download Genetics Essentials Concepts and Connections 3rd Edition Pierce Test Bank all chapters
Download Genetics Essentials Concepts and Connections 3rd Edition Pierce Test Bank all chapters
https://testbankfan.com/product/genetics-essentials-concepts-and-
connections-1st-edition-pierce-test-bank/
https://testbankfan.com/product/genetics-a-conceptual-
approach-6th-edition-pierce-test-bank/
https://testbankfan.com/product/genetics-a-conceptual-
approach-5th-edition-pierce-test-bank/
https://testbankfan.com/product/concepts-of-genetics-3rd-edition-
brooker-test-bank/
Genetics A Conceptual Approach 5th Edition Pierce
Solutions Manual
https://testbankfan.com/product/genetics-a-conceptual-
approach-5th-edition-pierce-solutions-manual/
https://testbankfan.com/product/genetics-a-conceptual-
approach-6th-edition-pierce-solutions-manual/
https://testbankfan.com/product/psychology-concepts-and-
connections-9th-edition-rathus-test-bank/
https://testbankfan.com/product/biochemistry-concepts-and-
connections-1st-edition-appling-test-bank/
https://testbankfan.com/product/campbell-biology-concepts-and-
connections-9th-edition-taylor-test-bank/
1. Which of the following facts would NOT be considered as an advantage for using
bacteria and viruses for genetic studies?
A) Rapid reproduction and high progeny number
B) Haploid genome for expressing mutations
C) Complete absence of recombination, which maintains the integrity of genome
D) Low cost to maintain and little storage space required
E) Genomes being small and readily subjected to genetic manipulation
2. Bacterial mutants that require supplemental nutrients in their growth media are called:
A) autotrophs.
B) heterotrophs.
C) prototrophs.
D) omnitrophs.
E) auxotrophs.
3. Which of the following statements about nutritional requirement and growth of bacteria
is NOT true?
A) Culture media developed for bacteria must contain carbon source and essential
elements for the survival of the bacteria.
B) Auxotrophic mutants can grow on medium that lack carbon source because they
can synthesize their own nutrients.
C) Each bacterium has specific nutritional needs and conditions for successful
cultivation.
D) Prototrophic bacterial strains can grow on minimal media.
E) The growth rate of bacteria on specific media can be assessed by the number and
size of bacterial colonies.
4. Bacterial strains that can produce all the necessary compounds and therefore grow on
minimal media are called:
A) autotrophs.
B) heterotrophs.
C) prototrophs.
D) omnitrophs.
E) auxotrophs.
Page 1
5. _____ medium contains all of the substances required by bacteria for growth and
reproduction.
A) Minimal
B) Complete
C) Auxotrophic
D) Selective
E) Liquid
6. _____ solidifies when cooled and provides a solid, gel-like base for bacterial growth.
A) Broth
B) Agar
C) Colony
D) Liquid
E) Velvet
7. _____ is used to isolate mutant bacterial strains on the basis of their nutritional
requirements.
A) Autoclaving
B) Complete medium
C) Replica plating
D) Karyotyping
E) Conjugation
9. Which of the following refers to a slender extension of the cell membrane used for
bacterial conjugation?
A) episome
B) F factor
C) pilus
D) prophage
E) oncogene
Page 2
10. What happens to the remainder of the donated chromosome after crossing over has
taken place in the recipient cell?
A) It is not maintained and is degraded.
B) It is replicated and kept as an episome.
C) It is transferred to another bacterium via conjugation.
D) It is integrated into the nucleus.
E) Nothing happens to it, so it just floats around in the cytoplasm.
11. Bacterial cells containing an F plasmid that has acquired bacterial chromosomal genes
are called:
A) F+.
B) F.
C) F–.
D) Hfr.
E) Hfr+.
12. A bacterial cell transfers chromosomal genes to F– cells, but it rarely causes them to
become F+. The bacterial cell is:
A) Hfr.
B) lysogenic.
C) auxotrophic.
D) lytic.
E) F+.
13. Which of the following statements about genetic exchange in bacteria is NOT true?
A) Bacteria do not always require direct DNA transfer from other living cells in order
to acquire genetic material.
B) Plasmids do not have to integrate into the host cell chromosome in order to be
replicated.
C) Interrupted conjugation results in the production of Hfr strains.
D) The order of gene transfer is not the same for different Hfr strains.
E) Antibiotic resistance can be transferred from one bacterial cell to another by
conjugation.
14. Conjugation between an F cell and an F– cell may produce partial diploids called
_____.
A) homozygotes
B) heterozygotes
C) hemizygotes
D) pseudozygotes
E) merozygotes
Page 3
15. Which of the following will have the LEAST influence on the efficiency of
transformation in E. coli bacteria?
A) Calcium chloride treatment
B) Heat shock
C) Electrical field
D) Chilling on the ice
E) The amount of foreign DNA
16. Which of the following gene transfer mechanisms would specifically use time as a basic
unit of mapping?
A) Transformation
B) Crossing over
C) Transduction
D) Conjugation
E) Recombination
17. The transfer of DNA from a donor cell to a recipient cell through a cytoplasmic
connection is called:
A) transformation.
B) transduction.
C) lysogenic cycle.
D) lytic cycle.
E) conjugation.
18. When the F factor episome integrates into the E. coli chromosome, the result is which of
the following strains?
A) Hfr
B) F–
C) F+
D) F
E) F+/–
Page 4
20. Which of the following statements about antibiotic resistance in bacteria is NOT true?
A) Antibiotic resistance cannot be conferred by conjugation as conjugation only
affects the fertility of bacteria.
B) The antibiotic resistance gene can be transmitted to bacteria via transformation or
transduction.
C) Environments where antibiotics are frequently used such as hospitals are under the
higher risk of developing antibiotic resistance.
D) Antibiotic resistance often originates from the microbes that produce antibiotics for
their own survival.
E) The plasmid containing the antibiotic resistance gene can pass the genes to
genetically unrelated bacteria.
21. Joshua Lederberg and Edward Tatum conducted experiments with two auxotrophic
strains of E. coli. The Y20 strain had the genotype thr– leu– thi– bio+ phe+ cys+, and the
Y24 strain had the genotype thr+ leu+ thi+ bio– phe– cys–. Which of the following
procedures would produce growth of bacterial colonies?
A) Spread the Y20 strain on minimal medium agar plates.
B) Spread the Y24 strain on minimal medium agar plates.
C) Boil the Y20 strain, and spread it on minimal medium agar plates.
D) Boil the Y24 strain, and spread it on minimal medium agar plates.
E) Mix the Y20 and Y24 strains together, and spread it on minimal medium agar
plates.
23. leu– bacteria are mixed in a flask with leu+ bacteria, and soon all bacteria are leu+.
However, if the leu– cells are on one side of a U-tube and the leu+ cells are on the other,
the leu– cells do not become prototrophic. Which process is likely to produce this
observed result?
A) Conjugation
B) Transduction
C) Transformation
D) Reciprocal translocation
E) Transfection
Page 5
24. How are Hfr strains of bacteria different from F+ strains?
A) Cells of Hfr strains are able to transfer chromosomal genes, whereas cells of F+
strains cannot.
B) Cells of Hfr strains cannot initiate conjugation with F– cells.
C) The F factor is integrated into the bacterial chromosome in all or most cells of an
Hfr strain but in only a few cells in an F+ strain.
D) Cells of Hfr strains carry F plasmids, whereas F+ cells do not.
E) Cells of Hfr strains can initiate conjugation with F+ cells or other Hfr cells.
25. You perform interrupted-mating experiments on three Hfr strains (A, B, and C). Genes
are transferred (from last to first) in the following order from each strain: strain A,
thi-his-gal-lac-pro; strain B, azi-leu-thr-thi-his; strain C, lac-gal-his-thi-thr. How are the
F factors in these strains oriented?
A) A and B are oriented in the same direction.
B) B and C are oriented in the same direction.
C) A and C are oriented in the same direction.
D) All of them are oriented in the same direction.
E) It cannot be determined from the information given.
a+ and b+ 2
a+ and c+ 0
a+ and d+ 5
b+ and c+ 5
b+ and d+ 0
c+ and d+ 0
A) a c b d
B) a d c b
C) c b a d
D) c a d b
E) b c d a
Page 6
27. The figure below shows a partial chromosome map of an E. coli Hfr strain. Each mark
equals 10 minutes. If transfer of genes begins at “*” and goes in the direction of the
arrow, which of the predicted results from this map is highly likely to be observed?
A) gal will be the first, and ton will be the last gene to be transferred.
B) lac and azi will rarely be transferred together.
C) Ten minutes after transfer of ton, azi will be transferred.
D) It would take 30 minutes to transfer all of the genes that are shown.
E) All the chromosomal genes will be transferred by the end.
28. The figure below shows the results of interrupted-mating experiments with three
different Hfr strains. What is the order of the genes, starting with C?
Page 7
30. The life cycle of virulent phages that always kill their host cell and never become
inactive prophages would be the _____ cycle.
A) lethal
B) lytic
C) temperate
D) strict
E) lysogenic
31. A high concentration of bacteria used to produce a continuous layer on an agar plate is
called a(n):
A) bacterial lawn.
B) colony.
C) virus.
D) integrase.
E) plaque.
32. A clear patch of lysed cells on a bacterial agar plate that indicates lytic phage
reproduction is called a(n):
A) plaque.
B) transformation.
C) prophage.
D) oncogene.
E) provirus.
33. The process of transferring DNA from one bacterium to another through a
bacteriophage is:
A) conjugation.
B) induction.
C) transformation.
D) transduction.
E) infection.
34. Which type of transduction is used to map distances between phage genes?
A) Generalized transduction
B) Specialized transduction
C) Targeted transduction
D) Random transduction
E) Discontinuous transduction
Page 8
35. Two different strains of a mutant phage infect a single bacterium. One phage strain is d–
and the other is e–. Some of the progeny phages are genotype d+e+, and some are d–e–.
What genetic phenomenon does this demonstrate?
A) Complementation
B) Specialized transduction
C) Generalized transduction
D) Recombination
E) Differentiation
39. The continual genetic change that is introduced into the influenza genome is called
antigenic:
A) drift.
B) shift.
C) swing.
D) wander.
E) roam.
Page 9
40. Two different strains of a mutant phage infected a single bacterium. One phage strain is
a–b+ and the other is a+b–. The coinfected phages produced the wild-type phenotype in
the bacterium: progeny phages were diluted and plated on a bacterial lawn. The
resulting plaques produced the following genotypes: 19 a+ b+, 31 a–b+, 29 a+b–, 21
a–b–. What is the recombination frequency between the a and b genes?
A) 10%
B) 20%
C) 30%
D) 40%
E) 50%
47. You perform interrupted conjugation using an a+b+c+d+l+m+n+o+ Hfr strain and an F–
strain that is a–b–c–d–l–m–n–o–. You observe the following genes transferred together in
order from last to first.
n+a+c+m+
o+m+c+a+n+
o+b+d+l+n+
Page 10
48. (a) Explain how chromosomal genes are transferred from donors to recipients when
cells of an F+ strain are mixed with F– cells. (b) Explain why transfer of chromosomal
genes occurs at a higher frequency when cells of an Hfr strain are mixed with F– cells.
49. (a) What is an F plasmid, and how is it formed? (b) Explain how an F can be used to
construct a bacterial strain that is partially diploid. (c) Explain how partial diploid
strains can be used to assess interactions between different alleles (e.g., lac+ and lac–).
50. Explain the significance of horizontal gene transfer to bacterial evolution and to our
ability to discern relationships between different groups of bacteria.
51. Outline the steps involved in mapping bacterial genes by generalized transduction.
53. Both retroviruses and lysogenic bacteriophages employ a mechanism that allows them
to be replicated and passed from cell to cell without producing viruses. What is the
common mechanism that these two very different viruses use?
54. A retrovirus has an RNA genome but integrates into the DNA chromosome of a host
cell. Explain how it does this.
55. List and describe three different ways that DNA from one bacterium can be transferred
into bacterial cells.
Page 11
57. You are using phages to map three toxin-production genes (R, Y, and G) in a new
bacterium. You grow phages in a strain of the bacteria that produces all three toxins (R+,
Y+, G+), isolate the phage, and then infect a second bacterial strain that cannot produce
any of the toxins (R–, Y–, G–). The recipient bacteria are then grown on colorimetric
media (media that change color in response to toxin presence) to see which toxin genes
are transferred together by the phage. The data are as follows:
58. HIV has a high mutation rate. What causes this, and how might this be advantageous to
the virus?
59. Two phage phenotypes are controlled by the genes a and b. In a mapping experiment, a
culture of bacteria is infected simultaneously with an a–b+ strain and an a+b– strain.
When plaques are analyzed, 5 out of 1000 have the a+b+ or a–b– phenotype. Based on
the information, how far apart are genes a and b?
60. A virulent bacteriophage is used to infect a prototrophic bacterial culture. Phages are
collected from the culture and are used to infect a new bacterial strain that has several
auxotrophies. After infection, rare prototrophs are found.
met+ leu+ 0
met+ pro+ 1
met+ his+ 0
pro+ leu+ 2
pro+ his+ 0
leu+ his+ 1
Page 12
61. You are studying a new phage that infects H. pylori. You isolated two mutant strains of
the phage, each producing a different plaque phenotype due to a specific mutation:
rough (r) and big (b). You coinfect H. pylori with both strains by adding a mixture of
phages to a culture of cells. You collect the cell lysate containing progeny phages; plate
diluted phages on a lawn of H. pylori cells; and observe 970 rough plaques, 890 big
plaques, 0 rough and big plaques, and 500 normal, wild-type plaques.
a. What is the recombination frequency between the r locus and the b locus?
b. Can r and b be different alleles of the same locus?
c. How can you explain the results?
62. (a) Explain the mechanism that leads to rapid evolution of the virus that causes
influenza. (b) Distinguish between antigenic drift and antigenic shift, and explain the
significance of each to influenza evolution and the occurrence of influenza in humans.
Page 13
Answer Key
1. C
2. E
3. B
4. C
5. B
6. B
7. B
8. A
9. C
10. A
11. B
12. A
13. C
14. E
15. D
16. D
17. E
18. A
19. A
20. A
21. E
22. B
23. A
24. C
25. A
26. C
27. B
28. D
29. B
30. B
31. A
32. A
33. D
34. A
35. D
36. B
37. A
38. E
39. A
40. D
41. Plasmids are small, circular, extra-chromosomal DNA molecules found naturally in
bacteria. They carry extra genes and can transfer these genes from one bacterial cell to
another. They are also used extensively in genetic engineering.
Page 14
42. a. Each mutant strain must be auxotrophic for the amino acid arginine. This characteristic of mutant
used to determine the number of genes, the locations of genes, and the functions of genes that enco
used for arginine biosynthesis.
b. Bacteria would first be plated on complete media (i.e., media containing arginine and other essenti
Next, bacteria would be replica-plated both to Petri plates containing media that lacked arginine an
plates containing media that contained arginine. Analysis of the growth of the strains on these two
would reveal auxotrophs, that is, those that grow on media containing arginine but do not grow on
arginine.
c. Three methods are (1) interrupted conjugation, (2) cotransformation, and (3) generalized transduct
43. The F factor plasmid in an F+ cell is replicated, and one copy is transferred to the F– cell
through conjugation.
44. The F– cell must first receive an F factor plasmid by conjugation with an F+ cell. Once
inside the recipient cell, the F plasmid can integrate into the bacterial chromosome,
converting the cell to Hfr.
45. (1) Select a donor Hfr strain and a recipient F– strain. The two strains must be different in genotype fo
genes—for example, leu– and leu+, azir and azs.
(2) The two strains are mixed together in a nutrient medium to allow conjugation to begin. After a few
culture is diluted to prevent new conjugations.
(3) At regular intervals, conjugation is interrupted by shearing the mating bacteria away from each oth
(4) For each time point, cells that mated are selected—for instance, by requiring that prototrophy or a
resistance from each parent be present in one cell.
(5) Cells that mated are checked for transfer of other genes from the Hfr to the F– strain.
(6) Order and distance of transferred genes are determined by comparing the time required for them to
Hfr to the F– strain.
46. (1) A donor strain is chosen that has a number of prototrophies or antibiotic
resistances.
(2) The recipient strain's genotype is different from that of the donor.
(3) DNA from the donor strain is fragmented and is used to transform the recipient
strain.
(4) Transformants are selected—for instance, for a prototrophy or antibiotic
resistance.
(5) Transformants are tested for other genes they acquired in the transformation.
(6) Order and distance of transferred genes are determined by comparing
cotransformation frequencies.
47. The map is circular: -m-c-a-n-l-d-b-o-.
48. (a) Within a few cells of an F+ strain, the F factor will integrate into one of several
positions of the bacterial chromosome and become Hfr. When the integrated F factor
initiates conjugation, genes of the bacterial chromosome will be transferred behind the
leading part of the F factor. Once inside the recipient, the transferred chromosomal
genes can be recombined into the recipient's chromosome. Transfer of chromosomal
genes occurs at only a low frequency because relatively few cells in an F+ strain are Hfr.
(b) Almost all of the cells of an Hfr strain contain an F factor that is integrated into
the bacterial chromosome. All of these cells have the ability to transfer chromosomal
genes to F– cells, so the frequency of transfer is high.
49. (a) An F is an F factor that carries one or two genes from the bacterial
chromosome. An F forms when an F factor excises imprecisely from the chromosome,
Page 15
carrying a small part of the chromosome with it.
(b) When a cell carrying an F contacts an F– cell, the F is copied and transferred to
–
the F cell. The recipient cell will then possess two copies of the gene or genes that are
carried on the F.
(c) It is more difficult to assess interactions between alleles in bacteria because
bacteria normally are haploid and the alleles normally do not occur together in a cell or
strain. However, F strains can be used to construct partial diploid strains that allow for
these interactions to be tested. For example, a strain can be established that is
heterozygous for the lac gene, allowing one to determine the dominance relationship
between lac+ and lac–.
50. Horizontal gene transfer is the transfer of genes from one type of bacteria to
another through conjugation, transformation, or (less likely) transduction. In some
cases, genes can be transferred horizontally between bacteria that are not closely related.
Horizontal gene transfer allows bacteria of different types to exchange genetic variation
and to acquire new genetic traits that can be tested by natural selection. Some evidence
suggests that horizontal gene transfer is extensive in nature. For example, about 17% of
the E. coli genome is thought to have come from other types of bacteria. As a result,
some bacteriologists question whether concepts of species even apply in bacteria, given
that a particular bacterium can contain parts of a variety of genomes from different
groups.
Page 16
57. a. Transduction
b. Y
c. R
58. The reverse transcriptase of HIV has an unusually high error rate, so that many
mutations occur as the HIV genome is converted from RNA to DNA. A high mutation
rate, though potentially creating nonfunctional viral proteins, also leads to rapid
evolution of the virus, allowing it to continually adapt to new threatening conditions
even within one host.
59. They are 0.5 map units apart.
60. (1) met and pro are close to each other.
(2) pro and leu are close to each other.
(3) leu and his are close to each other.
(4) The gene order is met pro leu his.
61. a. No recombinant plaques were observed, so the recombination frequency is 0.
b. No, the 500 wild-type plaques are a result of complementation between the two
phage strains in doubly-infected cells.
c. The genes could be overlapping so that no recombination occurs between them.
62. (a) The enzyme that copies the RNA genome of the influenza virus is prone to
replication errors, leading to a high rate of mutation and rapid production of new genetic
variants upon which natural selection can act.
(b) Antigenic drift is the continual change in influenza proteins that result from
mutations due to replication errors. Antigenic drift involves fairly small changes in the
virus from year to year. Although the changes are not dramatic, they are significant in
that most humans are not immune to the new variants and a new flu vaccine must be
created each year. Antigenic shift is the production of a fundamentally new type of
influenza virus through reassortment that occurs when two or more different strains of
virus infect a single cell. Some of the progeny will carry fundamentally new
combinations of genetic traits. Typically, very few people will be immune to the new
strain, giving rise to the potential for widespread infection or pandemic. Significantly,
reassortment is unpredictable, so that vaccines typically are not available until after the
new strain has spread throughout the world.
Page 17
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
Experiment, analysis, reasoning inductive and deductive, these are
the means by which Science makes its advances, and with these
Poetry cannot rightly intermeddle. Imaginatively to contemplate the
spectacle of the world is possible before Science has begun, it is
possible, also, after it has completed its work. But it is not possible to
combine imaginative contemplation and scientific investigation at the
same time, and in one mental act. Only after analysis and reasoning
have done their work and secured their results is the man of science
free to look abroad on Nature with a poetic eye. Analysis and
experimentalizing cannot by any possibility be made poetic, but their
results may. Every new province of knowledge which Science
conquers, Poetry may in time enter into and possess. But this can
only be done gradually. Before imagination can take up and mould
the results of Science, these must have ceased to be difficult,
laborious, abstruse. The knowledge of them must have become to
the poet himself, and in some measure to his audience, familiar,
habitual, spontaneous. And here we see how finely Science and
Poetry may interact and minister each to the other. If it be the duty of
Science beneath seeming confusion to search for order, and its
happiness to find it everywhere,—an order more vast, more various,
more deeply penetrating, more intimate and minute than
uninstructed men ever dreamed of,—wherever it reveals the
presence of this, does it not open new fields for the imagination to
appropriate? For what is order but the presence of thought, the
ground of all beauty, the witness to the actual nearness of an
upholding and moving Spirit? This is the vast new domain which
Science is unveiling and spreading out before the eye of Poetry. And
Poetry, receiving this large benefit, may repay the debt by using her
own peculiar powers to familiarize men’s thoughts with the new
regions which Science has won for them. If there is any office which
Imagination can fulfill, it is this. She can help to bring home to the
mind things which, though true, are yet strange, distant, perhaps
distasteful. She can mediate between the warm, household feelings
and the cold and remote acquisitions of new knowledge, and make
the heart feel no longer “bewildered and oppressed” among the vast
extent and gigantic movements of the Universe, but at home
amongst them, soothed and tranquillized. Not, however, out of her
own resources alone can Imagination do this. She must bring from
the treasure-house of Religion moral and spiritual lights and
impulses, and with these interpenetrate the cold, boundless spaces
which the telescope has revealed. Some beginning of such a
reconciling process we may see here and there in those poems of
“In Memoriam” in which the Poet-Laureate has finely inwrought new
truths of Science into the texture of yearning affection and spiritual
meditation. Even where the views of Science are not only strange,
but even at first crude and repulsive, Imagination can soften their
asperity and subdue their harsher features. Just as when a railway
has been driven through some beautiful and sequestered scene,
outraging its quiet and scarring its loveliness, we see Nature in time
return, and “busy with a hand of healing,” cover the raw wounds with
grass, and strew artificial mounds and cuttings with underwood and
flowers. It seems then that while Science gives to Poetry new
regions to work upon, Poetry repays the debt by familiarizing and
humanizing what Science has discovered. Such is their mutual
interaction.
Mr. Stopford Brooke has told us that if on the scientific insight of
Faraday could be engrafted the poetic genius of Byron, the result
would be a poem of the kind “for which the world waits.” For “to write
on the universal ideas of Science,” he says, “through the emotions
which they excite, will be part of the work of future poets of Nature.”
Likely enough it may be so. For if Poetry were to leave large regions
of new thought unappropriated, being thus divorced from the onward
march of thought, it would speedily become obsolete and unreal. But
let us well understand what are the conditions of such poetry, the
conditions on which alone Imagination can wed itself to scientific
fact. The poet who shall sing the songs of Science must first be
perfectly at home in all the new truths, must move among them with
as much ease and freedom as ordinary men now do among the
natural appearances of things. And not the poet only, but his
audience must move with ease along the pathways which Science
has opened. For if the poet has first to instruct his readers in the
facts which he wishes imaginatively to render, while he expounds he
will become frigid and unpoetic. Just as Lucretius is dull in those
parts of his poem in which he has to argue out and to expound the
Atomic Theory, and only then soars when, exposition left behind, he
can give himself up to contemplate the great elemental movements,
the vast life that pervades the sum of things. For in order that any
truth or view of things may become fit material for poetry, it must first
cease to live exclusively in the study or the laboratory, and come
down and make itself palpable in the market-place. The scientific
truths must be no longer strange, remote, or technical. If they have
not yet passed into popular thought, they must at least have become
the habitual possession of the more educated before the poet can
successfully deal with them. This is the necessary condition of their
poetic treatment. Wordsworth, in one of his Prefaces, has stated so
clearly the truth on this subject that I cannot do better than give his
words. “If the time should ever come,” he says, “when what is now
called Science becomes familiarized to men, then the remotest
discoveries of the chemist, the botanist, the mineralogist, will be as
proper objects of the poet’s art as any upon which it can be
employed. He will be ready to follow the steps of the man of science,
he will be at his side, carrying sensation into the midst of the objects
of Science itself. The poet will lend his divine spirit to aid the
transfiguration, and will welcome the being thus produced as a dear
and genuine inmate of the household of man.”
Science therefore may in some measure modify Poetry, may
enlarge its range, may reveal new phases of it, but can never
supersede it. The imaginative view of things which Poetry expresses
is not one which can grow obsolete. It is not the child of any one
particular stage of knowledge or civilization, which can be put aside
when a higher stage has been reached. Any state of knowledge can
give scope to it. Any aspect of the world, that seen by the savage as
well as that of the sage, can awaken that imaginative glow of mind,
that thrill of emotion, which, expressed in fitting words, is called
Poetry. Only, as has been said above, before any aspect of nature,
or fact of life, or truth of science, may be capable of poetic treatment,
it must have become habitual and easy to the mind of the poet, and
in some measure to that of his audience. In the poet’s mind, at least,
it must have passed out of the region of mere head-notions into the
warmer atmosphere of imaginative intuition, and, vitalized there,
must have bodied itself into beautiful form and flushed into glowing
color. For, to repeat once again what has been said at the outset,
Poetry originates in the vivid contact of the soul—not of the
understanding merely, but of the whole soul—with reality of any kind;
and it is the utterance of the joy that arises, of the glow that is felt,
from such soul-contact with the reality of things. When that reality
has passed inward, and kindled the soul to “a white heat of emotion,”
then it is that genuine Poetry is born.
CHAPTER V.
HOW FAR SCIENCE MAY MODIFY POETRY.
3d. Again: since the progress of modern Science has let in on the
mental vision whole worlds of new facts and new forces,—a height
and a depth, a vastness and minuteness in Nature, as she works all
around us, alike in the smallest pebble on the shore, and “in the
loftiest star of unascended heaven,”—it cannot be but that all this
now familiar knowledge should enter into the sympathetic soul of the
poet, and color his eye as he looks abroad on Nature. When the eye,
for instance, from the southern beach of the Moray Firth passes over
to its northern shore, and rests on the succession of high plateaux
and precipiced promontories which form the opposite coast, and
observes how the whole landscape has been shaped, moulded, and
rounded into its present uniformity of feature by the glaciers that
untold ages since descended from Ben Wyvis and his neighboring
altitudes, and wore and ground the masses of old red sandstone into
the outlines of the bluffs he now sees,—who can look on such a
spectacle without having new thoughts awakened within him, of
Nature working with her primeval wedges of frost, ice, and flood, to
carve the solid rock into the lineaments before him, and of the still
higher power behind Nature that directs and controls all these her
movements to ulterior and sublimer ends! When, in addition to these
thoughts, the gazer calls to mind that these are the native headlands
which first arrested the meditative eye of the great northern mason,
more than any other, geologist and poet in one, and fed the fire of his
young enthusiasm, does not the geologic charactery that is scrawled
upon these rocks receive a strange enhancement of human interest?
Again: the huge gray bowlders strewn here and there on the top of
those promontories, and all about the dusky moors, when we learn
that they have been floated to their present stations from leagues
away by long vanished glaciers, no doubt their gaunt shapes
become wonderfully suggestive. And yet, perhaps, nothing that
geology can teach regarding them will ever invest them with a more
imaginative aspect than that which they wore to the poet’s eye,
when, caring little enough for scientific theories, it shaped them into
this human phantasy—
The thought with which the last chapter closed opens up views
which are boundless. Through the imaginative apprehension of
outward Nature, and through the beauty inherent in it, we get a
glimpse into the connection of the visible world with the realities of
morality and of religion. The vivid feeling of Beauty suggests, what
other avenues of thought more fully disclose, that the complicated
mechanism of Nature which Science investigates and formulates into
physical law is not the whole, that it is but the case or outer shell of
something greater and better than itself, that through this mechanism
and above it, within it, and beyond it, there lie existences which
Science has not yet formulated—probably never can formulate—a
supersensible world, which, to the soul, is more real and of higher
import than any which the senses reveal. It is apprehended by other
faculties than those through which Science works, yet it is in no way
opposed to science, but in perfect harmony with it, while
transcending it. The mechanical explanation of things—of the
Universe—we accept as far as it goes, but we refuse to take it as the
whole account of the matter, for we know, on the testimony of moral
and spiritual powers, that there is more beyond, and that that which
is behind and beyond the mechanism is higher and nobler than the
mechanism. We refuse to regard the Universe as only a machine,
and hold by the intuitions of faith and of Poetry, though the objects
which these let in on us cannot be counted, measured, or weighed,
or verified by any of the tests which some physicists demand as the
only gauges of reality. This ideal but most real region, which the
visible world in part hides from us, in part reveals, is the abode of
that supersensible truth to which conscience witnesses,—the special
dwelling-place of the One Supreme Mind. The mechanical world and