"Psychologists and neuroscientists have discovered that babies not only learn more, but imagine more, care more and experience more than we would ever have thought possible," writes Gopnik in "The Philosophical Baby." In some ways, babies can be smarter and more imaginative than we are.
This doesn't mean that we should turn parental prerogative over to the toddler or that President Obama should consult Malia and Sasha on health care reform (as Jimmy Carter once said he consulted little Amy on arms control). But it does suggest that we recapture some of the child's sense of wonder.
The disciplines of work rob us of the imaginative images that inspire children, what Wordsworth saw in a host of daffodils, William Blake in a grain of sand, Emily Dickenson in the quickened wings of a hummingbird. As children, we enjoy fusing poetic observations with factual information, but as we grow older we grow suspicious of the imagination. Even before they can talk, babies exploit the human ability to use tools (toys) and imagination (pretend). Both abilities play a large role in evolutionary success.
Science and imagination can join forces again in the exploration of time and space expanding man's horizons. "In The Age of Wonder," Richard Holmes tells how science in the 18th century was driven by poetic wonder as well as new inventions.
William Herschel, a musician who created a telescope that was unparalleled in its light-gathering power, discovered the first new planet in a thousand years, which he named Uranus. The poet John Keats compares this discovery to the feeling he had on first reading Homer. Humphrey Davy, a chemist and poet, invented a safety lamp for miners and discovered nitrous oxide, which would be used later as an anesthetic. Samuel Coleridge wanted Davy to set up a laboratory in the Lake District, surrounding his scientific experiments with nature's tranquility.
The Romantics have been out of fashion in literary circles for some time. So has our sense of wonder. But in these imaginatively challenged times, the romance of imagination is recoverable. Alas, that's enough for now. I hear my cell phone ringing.