LITERATURE AND SCIENCE. 737 



weariness and feebleness. To many minds a more satisfactory way 

 of explaining the phenomena produced by massage would be by say- 

 ing that they all occur in consequence of " magnetism," by which they 

 have an indefinite understanding that this is some sort of impercepti- 

 ble, ethereal fluid passing from one person to another. Such an ex- 

 planation is low, gross, and vulgar, and it is erroneously used as a 

 synonym for personal influence by people who do not know the proper 

 scientific meaning of magnetism. Those who claim to have a vast 

 stock of "magnetism" are like those who talk much of their bravery 

 sensible people find* them devoid of either. 







LITEKATUKE AND SCIENCE* 



By MATTHEW ARNOLD.- 



" ~^\TTO wisdom, nor counsel, nor understanding, against the Eter- 

 -L-N nal ! " says the Wise Man. Against the natural and ap- 

 pointed course of things there is no contending. Ten years ago I 

 remarked on the gloomy prospect for letters in this country, inasmuch 

 as while the aristocratic class, according to a famous dictum of Lord 

 Beaconsfield, was totally indifferent to letters, the friends of physical 

 science, on the other hand, a growing and popular body, were in active 

 revolt against them. To deprive letters of the too great place they 

 had hitherto filled in men's estimation, and to substitute other studies 

 for them, was now the object, I observed, of a sort of crusade with 

 the friends of physical science a busy host, important in itself, im- 

 portant because of the gifted leaders who march at its head, important 

 from its strong and increasing hold upon public favor. 



I could not help, I then went on to say, I could not help being 

 moved with a desire to plead with the friends of physical science on 

 behalf of letters, and in deprecation of the slight which they put upon 

 them. But from giving effect to this desire I was at that time drawn 

 off by more pressing matters. Ten years have passed, and the pros- 

 pects of any pleader for letters have certainly not mended. If the 

 friends of physical science were in the morning sunshine of popular 

 favor even then, they stand now in its meridian radiance. Sir Josiah 

 Mason founds a college at Birmingham to exclude "mere literary in- 

 struction and education " ; and at its opening a brilliant and charming 

 debater, Professor Huxley, is brought down to pronounce their funeral 

 oration. Mr. Bright, in his zeal for the United States, exhorts young 

 people to drink deep of "Hiawatha" ; and the "Times" which takes 

 the gloomiest view possible of the future of letters, and thinks that 



* Address delivered as " The Rede Lecture " at Cambridge. 

 vol. xxi. 47 



