Yiii UNIVERSITIES: ACTUAL AND IDEAL 211 



of the long exclusion of any serious discipline in 

 the phj-sical sciences from the general curriculum 

 of Universities; while^ on the other hand, clas- 

 sical literature has been gradually made the back- 

 bone of the Arts course. 



I am ashamed to repeat here what I have said 

 elsewhere, in season and out of season, respecting 

 the value of Science as knowledge and discipline. 

 But the other day I met with some passages in the 

 Address to another Scottish University, of a great 

 thinker, recently lost to us, which express so fully, 

 and yet so tersely, the truth in this matter that I 

 am fain to quote them: — 



" To question all things; — never to turn away 

 from any difficulty; to accept no doctrine either 

 from ourselves or from other people without a 

 rimd scrutinv bv ne2:ative criticism; letting^ no 

 fallacv, or incoherence, or confusion of thouirht, 

 step by unperceived; above all, to insist upon hav- 

 ing the meaning of a word clearly understood be- 

 fore using it, and the meaning of a proposition 

 before assenting to it; — these are the lessons we 

 learn " from workers in Science. " With all this 

 vigorous management of the negative element, 

 they inspire no scepticism about the reality of 

 truth or indilTcrence to its pursuit. The noblest 

 enthusiasm, both for the search after truth and for 

 applying it to its highest uses, pervades those writ- 

 ers." " In cultivating, therefore," science as an 

 essential ingredient in education, " we are all the 



