NOTES 137 



intellectual crimes of humanity, and is now become their 

 punishment. 



Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and Cervantes 



These great men of science were, each in his own epoch and 

 country, the first to commence the exposition of a branch of 

 natural knowledge which, though it is of prime importance 

 for humanity, has not yet even received a name. The sub- 

 science of this department of knowledge aims at collecting, 

 classifying, and cataloguing the infinite varieties of character 

 and circumstance found among men and in human life ; the 

 theory of the science attempts to extract from the facts an 

 explanation of human action ; and the final great synthesis 

 endeavours to give us a logical rule of virtue and conduct. The 

 only manner in which such a science can be taught to men is 

 by way of narratives ofeyents which, though they may not 

 actually have occurrcJBfc. -described, are occurring over and 

 over again in history arm in our lives — just as Euclid's book 

 was the first to crystallise geometry in sets of definite pro- 

 positions with figures which are never actually found in nature. 

 Similarly, the constructions of the men of science referred to 

 have to be idealised, partly for brevity and partly for fixing the 

 attention of the public ; and with them, as with Euclid, this 

 necessity demands crystallisation in the best possible form — 

 a thing which is known by the name of art. Fundamentally 

 however all these works are works of science, and the art is 

 found only in their presentment. 



The great histories and biographies, as well as other epics 

 and novels, belong to the same class of work. The ultimate 

 object of all the writers is to instruct, to warn, and to encourage 

 — quite a different object to that of a lower type of writings 

 distinct from this type, the object of which is merely to amuse 

 or to impress readers with the cleverness of the author. In 

 the result, these great books have become the prime educators 

 of mankind, each doing more in this way than all our school- 

 masters put together can do. At every issue our conduct is 

 ruled, tacitly or admittedly, by some picture from these books 

 remaining somewhere in our minds. We do not murder because 

 we remember Cain and Macbeth ; we do not lie because we 

 remember Ananias and Iago ; we do not wish to be stupid and 

 greedy because we remember Sancho Panza ; nor to be unduly 



