EDITOR'S TABLE. 



123 



of science, as we now know it, is far 

 too difficult and too grand to have 

 been accomplished in the early or mid- 

 dle stages of human development. It 

 now represents profounder study, more 

 intense intellectual exertion, and a high- 

 er discipline of the mental faculties 

 than was possible until mankind had 

 had a long and painful experience in 

 the difficult task of explaining the mys- 

 teries of Nature. By the necessities 

 of the law of unfolding, therefore, the 

 higher exploits of modern thought are 

 not to be limited and measured by an- 

 cient standards. The ideal of literary 

 culture belongs to an older and, con- 

 sequently, to a lower stage of progress, 

 and it can not continue to hold in this 

 age the unrivaled ascendency which has 

 been accorded to it in the past. Science 

 represents an independent movement of 

 the human mind, and creates standards 

 of its own. It can not be judged, and 

 is not to be ranked, by those who have 

 been cultivated in a totally different 

 order of ideas. To the linguists, as 

 such, and to the cultivators of liter- 

 ature, as such, the understanding of the 

 course of Nature is nothing. They could 

 go on forever with their elegant arts 

 in utter ignorance of it, and without 

 missing it. The study of Nature, in a 

 methodical way, was a new mental dis- 

 pensation. The quest of truth by the 

 methods that yield the truth, and be- 

 cause of the value of truth, was a new 

 ideal, and the preparation for it a new 

 education. Under the old ideal of cult- 

 ure truth was, in fact, disavowed as a 

 supreme intellectual aim. The philoso- 

 phers loved to seek it, but proclaimed 

 that they did not care to find it ; and 

 there are still an emptiness, a hollow- 

 ness, and a conventionality in the ideal 

 of literary and scholastic culture, which 

 betray its mediaeval origin. "With the 

 coming of science as a method of 

 thought, there came a profounder se- 

 riousness in the purposes of study, 

 which could never have been origi- 

 nated in the purely literary sphere. 



With the coming of science, the think- 

 er was forced to take a new relation to 

 the world in which he lived. lie be- 

 came a devotee of truth in a sense 

 not before known, and subjected him- 

 self to a moral as well as to an intel- 

 lectual discipline, of which little could 

 be understood in the earlier stages of 

 mental cultivation. 



The literary ideal of culture is still 

 practically supreme. It is historic, it 

 is fortified by institutions, it reigns in 

 education, it is a social passport, it is 

 suited for display, and makes a mini- 

 mum requisition of intellectual effort. 

 For these reasons it is popular, and we 

 need not wonder at the arrogance and 

 exclusiveness of its pretensions. But it 

 belongs to the past, is losing its hold 

 upon the present ; and, while it may 

 never be superseded, it is yet bound to 

 be subordinated in future to that ideal 

 of mental culture which is the highest 

 intellectual attainment of the latest time, 

 and which is to be perfected through the 

 light of that scientific knowledge into 

 which the human mind has emerged in 

 this wonderful period. The triumphs 

 of intellect in the conquest of Nature 

 and the acquisition of great ideas in the 

 understanding of the universe are not 

 to be without powerful influence in de- 

 termining the cultivation of the edu- 

 cated classes. The emancipation from 

 narrow and groveling traditions may 

 take place slowly, but the change is 

 going on, and must go on, by the law 

 of progress, until the newer and nobler 

 knowledges become the highest instru- 

 ments of mental cultivation. 



A CATHOLIC ON CATHOLIC BLUNDERS. 



Mb. St. Geoege Miyart, the emi- 

 nent naturalist, who is well known as 

 an earnest member of the Eoman Catho- 

 lic Church, discusses in a recent number 

 of the " Nineteenth Century " the ques- 

 tion as to the degree of liberty which 

 modern Catholics may claim in the 

 treatment of scientific subjects. His 



