EDITOR'S TABLE. 



117 



classical education, as opposed to the 

 modern study of nature by the method 

 of science. Exactly what he means by 

 "Nature" does not so plainly appear, 

 but by his instincts as a classicist, alive 

 to the present emergencies, he is " down 

 upon it " whatever it be witness the 

 following passage: 



For what is this " Nature " (with a capital 

 N) which figures so largely as a final arbiter 

 in the enthusiastic eulogies of Science (with 

 a capital S) ? Does this Nature include man 

 and his operations, or does it not ? If it does, 

 then these very interferences are also a part 

 of Nature. And certainly the human part of 

 Nature has as good a claim to be the arbiter 

 as any other part. But if it does not include 

 man, and is merely a name for the forces and 

 processes of the world outside of the human 

 world, then we may safely assert our right to 

 come down upon this Nature, and mold and 

 control it according to our needs. Or if, to 

 take a third supposition, this capital-lettered 

 Nature is meant to include man only in his 

 ' natural" condition the wild man so called, 

 the savage, the animal then surely the very 

 effort of all civilization, and of education as 

 its chief instrument, is to oppose, and whip 

 in, and convert, and take command of these 

 untamed forces of Nature, that we may de- 

 velop the savage into the higher human being. 



Now, the nature about which Mr. 

 Sill is here so dubious, and of which he 

 seems to be so jealous, is by no means a 

 difficult thing to define and understand. 

 For the purpose here in view it is the 

 order of things in which man is placed, 

 of which he is a part, and of which it 

 is his highest intellectual prerogative to 

 be the interpreter. And it is to be re- 

 membered that " this Nature " is some- 

 thing which had no existence in that 

 golden age of classical antiquity which 

 gave origin to those literatures still 

 claimed to be best for the cultivation 

 of the human mind. 



It is sufficiently obvious that rela- 

 tively to man what nature is depends 

 upon what he is. To him who is igno- 

 rant of it, nature is one thing ; to him 

 who understands it, nature is another 

 and a very different thing. How the 

 savage regards the world, we need not 



here inquire, but it is desirable to know 

 how it was possible to regard it after 

 human culture had become greatly ad- 

 vanced. 



Man did not begin his mental career 

 by the study of nature. The earlier 

 forms of mental cultivation were liter- 

 ary. The Greeks and Romans developed 

 poets, dramatists, orators, historians, 

 critics, and artists of fine accomplish- 

 ments while yet nothing was known of 

 nature. The external aspects of tilings 

 were described with great fidelity, but 

 the view was sentimental, poetic, and 

 superficial. Into the secrets of nature 

 at that time men could not penetrate, 

 its course they could" not explain, its 

 order they could not conceive. They 

 had no clew to the interpretation of 

 even its simplest phenomena. They 

 could look, but they could not observe ; 

 they could construct, but they could 

 not experiment; they could guess, but 

 they could not verify ; they could spec- 

 ulate, but they could not create positive 

 knowledge. There is much of interest, 

 art, and beauty in the literatures of 

 Greece and Rome that has been a 

 source of pleasure to all succeeding 

 times; but these proficiencies brought 

 no capacity to explore and understand 

 the surrounding world. In all the 

 thinking, therefore, of the classical 

 ages, nature was simply left out. 



But this was not always to continue. 

 The earlier and lower forms of mental 

 effort gave a preparation for profonnder 

 work. Yet it was only in modern times 

 that men began to learn how properly 

 to inquire, and to prize the truth that 

 results from inquiry. After much va- 

 grant exertion, and a long and painful 

 apprenticeship in the processes of in- 

 vestigation, science began to take defi- 

 nite form as a higher manifestation 

 of intellectual power. Humanity had 

 grown to a new function. The art of 

 questioning Nature through observation 

 and experiment was slowly perfected ; 

 the facts arrived at were classified and 

 inductive truths established, and there 



