LITERATURE AND SCIENCE. 743 



whom the poor humanist is sometimes apt to regard as its Nebuchad- 

 nezzars. 



The great results of the scientific investigation of nature we are 

 agreed upon knowing, but how much of our study are we bound to 

 give to the processes by which those results are reached ? The re- 

 sults have their visible bearing on human life. But all the processes, 

 too, all the items of fact, by which those results are established, are 

 interesting. All knowledge is interesting to a wise man, and the 

 knowledge of nature is interesting to all men. It is very interesting 

 to know that from the albuminous white of the egg the chick in 

 the egg gets the materials for its flesh, bones, blood, and feathers, 

 while from the fatty yolk of the egg it gets the heat and energy 

 which enable it at length to break its shell and begin the world. It 

 is less interesting, perhaps, but still it is interesting, to know that, 

 when a taper burns, the wax is converted into carbonic acid and water. 

 Moreover, it is quite true that the habit of dealing with facts which is 

 given by the study of nature is, as the friends of physical science 

 praise it for being, an excellent discipline. The appeal is to obser- 

 vation and experiment ; not only is it said that the thing is so, but we 

 can be made to see that it is so. Not only does a man tell us that, 

 when a taper burns, the wax is converted into carbonic acid and water, 

 as a man may tell us, if he likes, that Charon is in his boat on the 

 Styx, or that Victor Hugo is a truly great poet, but we are made to 

 see that the conversion into carbonic acid and water does really hap- 

 pen. This reality of natural knowledge it is which makes the friends 

 of physical science contrast it, as a knowledge of things, with the hu- 

 manist's knowledge, which is, say they, a knowledge of words. And 

 hence Professor Huxley is moved to lay it down that, " for the pur- 

 pose of attaining real culture, an exclusively scientific education is at 

 least as effectual as an exclusively literary education." And a certain 

 president of the Section for Mechanical Science in the British Associ- 

 ation is, in Scripture phrase, "very bold," and declares that, if a man, 

 in his education, " has substituted literature and history for natural 

 science, he has chosen the less useful alternative." Whether we go 

 these lengths or not, we must all admit that in natural science the 

 habit gained of dealing with facts is a most valuable discipline, and 

 that every one should have some experience of it. 



But it is proposed to make the training in natural science the 

 main part of education, for the great majority of mankind at any 

 rate. And here, I confess, I part company with the friends of phys- 

 ical science, with whom up to this point I have been agreeing. In 

 differing from them, however, I wish to proceed with the utmost cau- 

 tion and diffidence. The smallness of my acquaintance with the dis- 

 ciplines of natural science is ever before my mind, and I am fearful of 

 doing them injustice. The ability of the partisans of natural science 

 makes them formidable persons to contradict. The tone of tentative 



