LITERATURE AND SCIENCE. 745 



Well, that same need of relating our knowledge which operates here 

 within the sphere of our knowledge itself, we shall find operating, also, 

 outside that sphere. We feel, as we go on learning and knowing, the 

 vast majority of mankind feel, the need of relating what we have learned 

 and known to the sense which we have in us for conduct, to the sense 

 which we have in us for beauty. 



The prophetess Diotima explained to Socrates that love is, in fact, 

 nothing but the desire in men that good should be for ever present to 

 them. This primordial desire it is, I suppose this desire in men that 

 good should be for ever present to them which causes in us the in- 

 stinct for relating our knowledge to our sense for conduct and to our 

 sense for beauty. At any rate, with men in general the instinct exists. 

 Such is human nature. Such is human nature ; and, in seeking to 

 gratify the instinct, we are following the instinct of self-preservation 

 in humanity. 



Knowledges which can not be directly related to the sense for 

 beauty, to the sense for conduct, are instrument-knowledges ; they 

 lead on to other knowledge, which can. A man who passes his life 

 in instrument-knowledges is a specialist. They may be invaluable as 

 instruments to something beyond, for those who have the gift thus 

 to employ them ; and they may be disciplines in themselves wherein 

 it is useful to every one to have some schooling. But it is inconceiv- 

 able that the generality of men should pass all their mental life with 

 Greek accents or with formal logic. My friend Professor Sylvester, 

 who holds transcendental doctrines as to the virtue of mathematics, 

 is far away in America ; and, therefore, if in the Cambridge Senate- 

 House one may say such a thing without profaneness, I will hazard 

 the opinion that, for the majority of mankind, a little mathematics, 

 also, goes a long way. Of course, this is quite consistent with their 

 being of immense importance as an instrument to something else ; but 

 it is the few who have the aptitude for thus using them, not the bulk 

 of mankind. 



The natural sciences do not stand on the same footing with these 

 instrument-knowledges. Experience shows us that the generality of 

 men will find more interest in learning that, when a taper burns, the 

 wax is converted into carbonic acid and water, or in learning the ex- 

 planation of the phenomenon of dew, or in learning how the circula- 

 tion of the blood is carried on, than they find in learning that the 

 gc -itive plural of pais and pas does not take the circumflex on the 

 termination. And one piece of natural knowledge is added to another, 

 and others to that, and at last we come to propositions so interesting 

 as the proposition that " our ancestor was a hairy quadruped furnished 

 with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in his habits." Or we 

 come to propositions of such reach and importance as those which 

 Professor Huxley brings us, when he says that the notions of our fore- 

 fathers about the beginning and the end of the world were all wrong, 



