LITERATURE AND SCIENCE. 741 



of a school-course which treats us as if we were all going to be poets, 

 writers, orators, and he opposes this humanism to positive science, or 

 the critical search after truth. And there is always a tendency, in 

 those who are remonstrating against the predominance of letters in 

 education, to understand by letters belles-lettres, and by belles-lettres a 

 superficial humanism, the opposite of science or true knowledge. 



But when we talk of knowing Greek and Roman antiquity, for in- 

 stance, which is what people have called humanism, we mean a knowl- 

 edge which is something more than a superficial humanism, mainly 

 decorative. " I call all teaching scientific" says Wolf, the critic of 

 Homer, " which is systematically laid out and followed up to its origi- 

 nal sources. For example : a knowledge of classical antiquity is sci- 

 entific when the remains of classical antiquity are correctly studied in 

 the original languages." There can be no doubt that Wolf is perfectly 

 right, that all learning is scientific which is systematically laid out and 

 followed up to its original sources, and that a genuine humanism is 

 scientific. 



When I speak of knowing Greek and Roman antiquity, therefore, 

 as a help to knowing ourselves and the world, I mean more than a 

 knowledge of so much vocabulary, so much grammar, so many portions 

 of authors, in the Greek and Latin languages. I mean knowing the 

 Greeks and Romans, and their life and genius, and what they were and 

 did in the world ; what we get from them, and what is its value. 

 That, at least, is the ideal ; and, when we talk of endeavoring to know 

 Greek and Roman antiquity as a help to knowing ourselves and the 

 world, we mean endeavoring so to know them as to satisfy this ideal, 

 however much we may still fall short of it. 



The same as to knowing our own and other modern nations, with 

 the aim of getting to understand ourselves and the world. To know 

 the best that has been thought and said by the modern nations is to 

 know, says Professor Huxley, " only what modern literatures have to 

 tell us ; it is the criticism of life contained in modern literature." And 

 yet " the distinctive character of our times," he urges, " lies in the 

 vast and constantly increasing part which is played by natural knowl- 

 edge." And how, therefore, can a man, devoid of knowledge of what 

 physical science has done in the last century, enter hopefully upon a 

 criticism of modern life ? 



Let us, I say, be agreed about the meaning of the terms we are 

 using. I talk of knowing the best which has been thought and uttered 

 in the world ; Professor Huxley says this means knowing literature. 

 Literature is a large word ; it may mean everything written with let- 

 ters or printed in a book. Euclid's "Elements" and Newton's "Prin- 

 cipia " are thus literature. All knowledge that reaches us through 

 books is literature. But by literature Professor Huxley means belles- 

 lettres. He means to make me say that knowing the best which has 

 been thought and said by the modern nations is knowing their belles- 



