BACKWARDNESS OF THE ANCIENTS. 



447 



the crescent moon after new moon is of ritual significance to the Jews, 

 the ecclesiastical commencement of their months depending upon it. 

 Their great philosopher, Maimonides, who wrote in the twelfth centu- 

 ry, informs us of the process whereby they for a long time noted the 

 moments wherein the lunula became visible ; hence they deduced a 

 formula by the aid of which the time of the visibility of the crescent 

 may be calculated. This is induction pure and simple ; but not till 

 long afterward was the soil fitted to receive such seed, or the signifi- 

 cance of this process recognized. 



For only a little over a hundred years have we been following the 

 right path. We have enlarged the capacities of our organs to an ex- 

 traordinary degree ; we have learned to warn our senses of the veils 

 with which preconceived philosophical ideas were wont to blindfold 

 them; we prize the good-fortune which places in our hands any im- 

 portant clew to the working of Nature ; disdainful skepticism, of which 

 Alexander von Humboldt says that, in individual instances, it is al- 

 most more harmful than unquestioning credulousness, is like the latter 

 disappearing from among us. But we must guard against the error 

 of supposing that herein is our entire salvation. "The educated man 

 is more than a virtuoso, than a specialist ; his power does not lie in 

 the exercise of one faculty alone. . . . The man who harmoniously 

 combines within himself the largest number of diverse faculties is a 

 leader of men, though he be surpassed by others in the development 

 of individual faculties. Here we have the fruits of true humanism, 

 of true culture, which is ever aiming at the establishing of an inward 

 equilibrium in the individual as in the state." These words of a re- 

 nowned poet of the present age foreshadow the counsel I would offer 

 to you for your guidance through life. While, on the one hand, the 

 principle of the division of labor, without which human progress is 

 inconceivable, restricts the functions of the individual within a com- 

 paratively narrow province: on the other hand, he only can wisely 

 elect to labor in such a province, and can work the field profitably, 

 who does not lack comprehensiveness. There is no science which has 

 not its aesthetic side, as there is no study of form which may not be 

 advanced by having a basis in fact. Philologists and historians of 

 late have been desirous of having their studies classed among inductive 

 sciences; the investigator of Nature feels more and more every day 

 that he has, perhaps, too long neglected the deductive method. And 

 philosophy itself, the science of sciences, can it subsist without a fun- 

 damental knowledge of the grounds of all the sciences ? Without phi- 

 losophy any high degree of intellectual development, in any direction 

 whatever, is inconceivable. Even they who turn away with con- 

 tempt from Philosophy are, in spite of themselves, compelled to have 

 recourse to her. She alone brings clearness in thoughts uj)on the na- 

 ture of one's chosen pursuit thoughts from which there is no escape 

 for whoever thinks ! 



