200 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



influenced. With his usual insight, Lange at one 

 place remarks, that ' it is not always the objectively 

 correct and intelligible that helps man most, or leads 

 most quickly to the fullest and truest knowledge. As 

 the sliding body upon the brachystochrone reaches its 

 end sooner than by the straighter road of the inclined 

 plane, so, through the swing of the ideal, we often 

 arrive at the naked truth more rapidly than by the 

 processes of the understanding.' Whewell speaks of 

 enthusiasm of temper as a hindrance to science ; but 

 he means the enthusiasm of weak heads. There is 

 a strong and resolute enthusiasm in which science 

 finds an ally ; and it is to the lowering of this fire, 

 rather than to the diminution of intellectual insight, 

 that the lessening productiveness of men of science, 

 in their mature years, is to be ascribed. Mr. Buckle 

 sought to detach intellectual achievement from moral 

 force. He gravely erred ; for without moral force to 

 whip it into action, the achievement of the intellect 

 would be poor indeed. 



It has been said by its opponents that science 

 divorces itself from literature ; but the statement, like 

 so many others, arises from lack of knowledge. A 

 glance at the less technical writings of its leaders 

 of its Helmholtz, its Huxley, and its Du Bois-Keymond 

 would show what breadth of literary culture they 

 command. Where among modern writers can you find 

 their superiors in clearness and vigour of literary style ? 

 Science desires not isolation, but freely combines with 

 every effort towards the bettering of man's estate. 

 Single-handed, and supported, not by outward sympathy, 

 but by inward force, it has built at least one great 

 wing of the many-man sioned home which man in his 

 totality demands. And if rough walls and protruding 

 rafter-ends indicate that on one side the edifice is still 



