VI SCIENCE AND CULTURE 14^9 



the day; and the great reform which they effected 

 was of incalculable service to mankind. But 

 the Nemesis of all reformers is finality; and 

 the reformers of education, like those of religion, 

 fell into the profound, however common, error of 

 mistaking the beginning for the end of the work 

 of reformation. 



The representatives of the Humanists, in the 

 nineteenth century, take their stand upon classical 

 education as the sole avenue to culture, as firmly 

 as if we were still in the age of Eenascence. Yet, 

 surely, the present intellectual relations of the 

 modern and the ancient worlds are profoundly 

 difi^erent from those which obtained three cen- 

 turies ago. Leaving aside the existence of a great 

 and characteristically modern literature, of mod- 

 ern painting, and, especially, of modern music, 

 there is one feature of the present state of the civ- 

 ilised world which separates it more widely from 

 the Renascence, than the Eenascence was sepa- 

 rated from the middle ages. 



This distinctive character of our own times lies 

 in the vast and constantly increasing part which 

 is played by natural knowledge. Not only is our 

 daily life shaped by it, not only does the pros- 

 perity of millions of men depend upon it, but 

 our whole theory of life has long been influenced, 

 consciously or unconsciously, by the general con- 

 ceptions of the universe, which have been forced 

 upon us by physical science. 



