EDITOR'S TABLE. 



113 



real knowledge; lie may have been 

 busy only with the reflected universe. 

 Not tliat the thoughts of dead thinkers 

 stored up in books are not part of the 

 universe as well as wind and rain ; not 

 that they may not repay study quite as 

 well; they are deposits of the human 

 mind, and by studying them much may 

 be discovered about the human mind, 

 the ways of its operation, the stages 

 of its development. Nor yet that the 

 thoughts of the dead may not be of the 

 greatest help to one who is studying the 

 universe : he may get from them sugges- 

 tions, theories, which he may put to the 

 test, and thus convert, in some cases, 

 into real knowledge. But there is a 

 third way in which he may treat them 

 which makes books the very antithesis 

 to reality, and the knowledge of books 

 the knowledge of a spurious universe. 

 This is when he contents himself with 

 storing their contents in his mind, and 

 does not attempt to put them to any 

 test, whether from superstitious rever- 

 ence or from an excessive pleasure in 

 mere language. He may show wonder- 

 ful ability in thus assimilating books, 

 wonderful retentiveness, wonderliil ac- 

 curacy, wonderful acuteness; nay, if 

 he clearly understands that he is only 

 dealing w-ith opinions, he may do good 

 service in that department, for opinions 

 need collecting and classifying as much 

 as botanical specimens. But one often 

 sees such collectors mistaking opinions 

 for truths, and depending for their views 

 of the universe entirely upon these 

 opinions, which they accept implicitly 

 without testing them. Such men may 

 be said to study, but not to study the 

 universe." 



This discrimination is both true and 

 highly significant. Old opinions, old 

 languages, and antiquated learning, are 

 fit subjects of study as a part of archae- 

 ology, like old buildings, old costunjes, 

 old coins, ear-rings, pictures, etc., which 

 are not without a certain historic inter- 

 est. But from this point of view they 

 are parts of the universe to be explored 



VOL. VIII. 8 



and explained, like all the rest of it, by 

 scientific methods. This, however, is 

 a widely difterent thing from setting 

 up old knowledges and thoughts of the 

 dead as systematic and exclusive ob- 

 jects of study, and the sufficient means 

 of mental cultivation. Yet the advo- 

 cates of education by traditional, unsci- 

 entific studies habitually slur over this 

 distinction, and, declaring that old lan- 

 guages and old traditional ideas are as 

 much parts of the universe as the rocks 

 and stars, proceed to install them into a 

 separate world in which the great mul- 

 titude of students are made to pass 

 their whole intellectual lives. It is no 

 exaggeration or mere figure of speech 

 to characterize this realm of antiquated 

 thought and dead language as a spuri- 

 ous universe. No one will deny that 

 the broad and distinctive object of sci- 

 entific study is the real and present 

 universe of phenomena, fact, and law, 

 which is open to the direct, immediate 

 action of the human mind. The study 

 of it in all its phases, by observation, ex- 

 periment, analysis, synthesis, and clas- 

 sification, has given rise to a vast body 

 of truths and principles known as sci- 

 entific knowledge, or modern scien^fic 

 thought, and by which and through 

 which the actual living universe is to 

 be interpreted and known. Obviously 

 the keys to tlie knowledge of the real 

 universe are held by science, and it is 

 inevitable that, if scientific knowledge 

 be left out of any educational scheme, 

 the genuine universe is omitted from 

 that scheme. And when this subtrac- 

 tion has been accomplished what re- 

 mains ? An unreal sham, an illusive, dis- 

 cordant representation of things which 

 may now be justly termed a "spurious 

 universe." We say it may now be justly 

 so termed, although, before the true uni- 

 verse was discovered, there could have 

 been no knowledge of its counterfeit. 

 The mass of pre-scientific opinion con- 

 cerning the world and its contents, the 

 course of Nature, man, life, and society, 

 when taken in relation to what is now 



