LVI ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



them is all tliat makes life worth living. They are the fields in which 

 Literature is supreme; for it deals with the whole region of the spirit — 

 the whole world of mind — and nothing in that world can be appre- 

 hended quantitatively. It is doubtless easier to appraise work done in 

 science than work done in literature — the scientific student can measure 

 his results by definite and readily accepted standards, while work in 

 literature must abide the general judgment of mankind. For that 

 reason, in an industrial age, the pursuit of literature is not favoured 

 by practical men; but they forget that, while science deals with the 

 matei'ial forms and forces of the universe, literature has for its sphere 

 tne wnole of the moral and intellectual forces past, present, and future. 

 **' Who knoweth the things of a man, but tlie spirit of a man which is 

 in him?" Now, the "things of a man" are just those things which 

 men really care for and by which civil society advances or retrogrades. 



These " things of a man," so profoundly interesting to humanity, 

 lie wiihin the domain of probable truth — a vast region extending from 

 the merest probability to the highest moral conviction — while science 

 with its mathematical methods and its weighings and measurings, lays 

 claim to certainty, and in that is a great attraction for practical minds. 

 But the sciences are no guide to life, and, in proportion as men obtain 

 control of the forces of nature, do they need instruction from other 

 sources of knowledge. In History, Political Economy, Sociology, and 

 their kindred studies will be found the clues leading to the higher civil- 

 ization and happier life of man. These are sometimes called " sciences " 

 very incorrectly ; for they all deal with probable truth. Their last word 

 is never said, for they extend as civilization evolves and humanity 

 advances. The Dreadnought, with its amazing adaptations of science, 

 may be blown to atoms in an instant by a torpedo from below, or by 

 dynamite from an air-ship from above. The hopes of the race are 

 bound up ratjher in such things as the discussions of the Hague Con- 

 ference — they are among the " things of a man." 



We can now apprehend the full meaning of Matthew Arnold's 

 definition of literature as the "Criticism of Life." Life! that is the 

 life of man — human life — life which we fondly believe will endure 

 in some more or less developed form when the spent sun has become 

 as cold as the moon; but, in any case, life which is to each one of ua 

 far more than any scientific fact or theory ever discovered or propounded. 

 For thousands of years our views of science have been grossly erroneous, 

 while the principles of life have been in the main the same. The laws 

 of conduct have been more stable than the theories of tlie constitution 

 of matter. Man struggles and succeeds or fails now just as at the 



