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Socrates lays down (whether he is always consistent with himself on this, any more than on other subjects, I really do not know) that no trace of slavery ought to mix with the studies of the free-born man; for the continual performance of bodily labour does, it is true, exert no evil influence upon the body; but, in the case of the mind, no study, pursued under compulsion, remains rooted in the memory." Probably many instances might be quoted to disprove this last statement; but I am sure there is a great deal of truth in it. 'Male parta male dilabuntur :' what we take no interest in learning we are commonly glad to forget. The real thing, it seems to me, is to strengthen the love of knowledge where it exists, and lead it on continually to fresh acquirements, seeking corrections for one-sidedness where I believe they may generally be found, in ever widening and deepening views of the study itself. There will always be outlying subjects to which the student will have some affinity, and these he may easily be led to pick up a boy with classical tastes, e.g., will, as a general rule, with a little encouragement, take kindly to English literature. On the other hand, there will be studies to which a boy of this kind will be apt to feel a natural repugnance; witness what I may almost call the hereditary feud between classics and mathematics. I do not say that it may not be possible, by a long and elaborate course of training, to soften these antipathies ; I do not say that it may not be in some cases desirable to do so; but, after all, some choice must be made, and there are many things of which the majority of cultivated men must, each in his own sphere, be content to remain in ignorance. I am ready to include Latin and Greek among these, as regards one type of men, destined to one course in life. I do not see why I may not include

1 Plato, Republic, book vii. p. 536 (Davies and Vaughan's translation). Н и 2

natural science as regards another. One class need not know the Greek name for the liver, or the Latin for the spleen; another class need not know where the liver or the spleen is, unless, unhappily, the information should be brought home to them in a practical shape. Some physical facts the literary man will require for the conduct of ordinary life, and he will get them; some facts about antiquity the scientific man will require in order to understand the condition of things about him, and he will also get them. For these purposes, as well as for purposes of social intercourse, the broad sheet of the 'Times' newspaper will supply sufficient common ground. For purposes of mental culture, apart from professional exigencies, each will find ample means of refreshment in his own and cognate studies.

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But it is said that classical men need a scientific education. Mr. Parker tells us that men of science make the complaint which Erasmus made of the scholars of his day: Incredibile quam nihil intelligat litteratorum vulgus.' Mr. Faraday, to a paper of whose he refers, spoke strongly to the Public School Commissioners of the delusions entertained by cultivated persons on matters of which no one can be a judge without having had a scientific training. Up to this very day there come to me persons of good education, men and women quite fit for all that you expect from education; they come to me, and they talk to me about things that belong to natural science, about mesmerism, table-turning, flying through the air, about the laws of gravity; they come to me to ask me questions, and they insist against me, who think I know a little of those laws, that I am wrong and they are right, in a manner which shows how little the ordinary course of education has taught such minds.' No one will defend these injudicious querists, who go to con

ADVANTAGES OF SPECIAL KNOWLEDGE.

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sult the oracle and then argue against the response given; though I suppose it might be asked whether their belief in their illusions is likely to have done them much harm, apart from leading them, as it apparently did, to violate good taste. But I will meet the complaint by a counter bit of experience. In 1853, not long after table-turning came into vogue, I was acquainted with a person who had no scientific knowledge, but occupied himself chiefly with the study of Greek plays. He heard of table-turning, and became rather interested in it. He tried it himself in a miniature form, which at that time was fashionable among beginners, the turning of a hat. The hat turned readily. He had endeavoured to observe his own movements while the process was going on, but found that the very act of thinking of his fingers' ends gave him a sensation as if his fingers' ends did not belong to him, so that he could not tell whether they were imparting any motion to the hat, much less whether the fingers' ends of his neighbours were imparting any. He resolved to suspend his judgment until some physical philosopher should speak. In two or three weeks one did speak, and that was Mr. Faraday himself, in a well-known letter to the Times.' My friend was satisfied, and troubled himself very little about table-turning afterwards. What led him to so sane a conclusion? It was simply that he was just then beginning to take a firm hold of his own subject, and, in consequence, to understand the authority which special knowledge imparts to its possessor.

6

But, granting that it is possible for non-scientific persons to avoid forming or propounding rash judgments on scientific subjects by attending to the simple rule of minding one's own business, is there nothing of importance to all educated men, to appreciate which a knowledge of science is absolutely necessary? My readers

will have anticipated that I am going to speak of a matter far graver than any I have touched on yet, the issue now pending between science and revelation. Mr. Parker presses this point in a few words; Mr. Wilson more at length. The latter thinks that no one can meet the question properly in whose mind religious and scientific ideas have not been allowed to grow up side by side. Now, it is important at starting to ascertain to whom or what the duty of coming to a conclusion on this is owing. Is it to religion or to science? Clearly to the former. I do not say that we have no duties to science: we all of us have duties to it; those who are led to it by natural bent or circumstances are bound to cultivate it; those who are not so led are bound to treat it with respect, and to refrain from rash and ignorant comments on it. But that belongs to the part of the argument with which we have been engaged for the last page or two, not to the part which we are now considering. The new claim advanced for science rests on another duty, our duty to religion. Science and religion are in apparent conflict, and therefore it concerns all religious men to entertain some opinion on a struggle which may affect religion. It is a question whether we are all bound to be scientific; there is no question, among those with whom I desire to class myself, that we are all bound to be religious. I am not advocating any sectarian view; I admit freely that all truth comes from God, and that religion may be injured, not merely by questioners who start difficulties, but by answerers who ignore them. I am only anxious to put the matter, as regards those who recognise religion, on its true basis. What we have to inquire, then, is, how may our duty to religion in this matter be satisfied? Is it due to religion that all those of us who are capable of acquainting themselves with scientific

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truth should try to do so? Let us consider what the points at issue between science and religion are. Two of those most prominently canvassed are the truth of the Mosaic account of the creation, and the credibility of the Gospel miracles. Would the breach that exists with regard to matters like these be healed by a general diffusion of scientific knowledge? Some have thought that a profounder investigation of science would remove the apparent contradictions which now trouble so many minds. It may be so; but is this likely to result from a more general diffusion of scientific education? If it is necessary to dig deeper than the science of the present day, will not such digging be carried on by the few rather than by the many? On the other hand, might there not be a danger, if science were more diffused among educated men, that those who are zealous for religion would broach superficial theories of reconciliation or confutation, such as readily commend themselves to partial knowledge, while they could not have occurred to honest ignorance? Surely the present aspect of the controversy tends to show that men require, for their own peace, at any rate, not instruc-tion in natural science, but views drawn from a philosophy of another kind; views which, while accepting the statements of science, if need be, at its own estimate, shall suggest other considerations unknown to science, and produce in the mind, not, perhaps, intellectual satisfaction, but at any rate a contented acquiescence in imperfect lights, as a condition at once warranted by fact and recommended by analogy. If, as I believe, our conclusion must be, as religious men alive to the controversies of our time, that while, on the one hand, there are many unsolved difficulties, on the other there are realities lying beyond the range of those difficulties, why are we bound to engrave the difficulties deeply on our minds, so that,