I09 



should be EXPERIENCE). It is only with an acute 

 sense of our own unworthiness that we approach 

 this subject at all. Dr. Butler, by virtue of his philo- 

 sophical studies, is evidently so profound and erudite 

 a scholar in this direction that we feel very loth to 

 suggest that the name — like many other abstract 

 nouns in our poor language— has more than one 

 meaning, and that these meanings vary according to 

 the comparative attainments of the persons who for 

 the moment are using the term. Yet we venture — 

 still keeping our own unworthiness strictly in view, 

 and therefore refraining from intruding our own 

 opinions — to quote the words of Dr. W. H. Dickinson. 

 They well sum up the man who delights in calling 

 himself a practical man of experience, the man who 

 cannot realize that, to be of any use at all, experience 

 vmst be C07nbi7ied ivith prelhninary hiowledge. The 

 words occur in the course of a justly celebrated 

 address to medical men and students, and are as 

 follows : — 



*• Some conservative spirits who arrogate to 

 " themselves a title which we all hope in its widest 

 "sense to deserve — that of practical men— pretend to 

 i' be superior to all theory, to despise recent investi- 

 ** gations of almost every kind, and to take observa- 

 •'tionas their only guide. Observation is indeed an 

 "excellent teacher, but 'practical men' do not appear 

 " to observe with greater accuracy or wider scope than 

 "their fellows; their distinction lies rather in this, 

 " that for want of better guidance they are more 

 " largely the creatures of tradition. Theory is an 

 " idea of purpose inseparable from human action ; 

 "practical men are no less influenced by it than their 

 " fellows, not indeed by the rational principles of 

 '• ripening knowledge but by the exploded fallacies of 

 " the past. To them I would commend a saying, 

 " which having come from a former great leader of 

 " Conservatives may be entitled to their respect,— 'A 



