This paper examines a number of interactions between science and literature by focusing on the influence of imaginative writing on the work of Ludwik Zejszner (1805–1871), a geologist and cartographer, as well as chair of mineralogy at the Jagiellonian University. In his popular book on geology, Geologia do łatwego pojęcia zastosowana (Geology adapted for easy understanding), published in 1856, the author strove to dissociate geology from literature, thus marking a distinct boundary between scientific and literary discourses.
Zejszner, as a representative of a newly emerging science, tried to define geology by contrasting it with other modes of writing, especially imaginative literature. Uneasy about the broader public response to research which relied on narratives, and frequently improbable ones at that, he strove to establish geology's credibility and authority:
Dealing with science, apart from its particular charms, also protects the mind from unnecessary agitation of—even the most poetic—imagination, whose final result is mental emptiness, so common in our times. Nothing but these sciences can give us a proper understanding of the things that surround us, or can prompt the mind to think properly, none of which can be achieved by a very popular reading of the works of imagination and novels, which commonly is limited only to passing a certain amount of hours of life…. The events I’m going to describe are not figments of the imagination, but are based on the most exact observations and experience.
Emphasizing the utility of scientific research and its beneficial influence on the workings of the mind, Zejszner attempted to separate geological narratives from “the works of imagination and novels,” “mental emptiness,” and idleness. The identity of modern geology is thus negatively founded on the contrast it offers to literary and imaginative writings. Zejszner positions science in relation to other discourses which he dismisses contemptuously. The strength of this attack was intended to separate geology and literature into binary opposites, but at the same time revealed Zejszner's apprehension of the unsettling similarities between the two discourses, which might diminish the importance of scientific research and its results in the public eye.