vn.] WISDOM BEFORE HAPPINESS. 173 



now runs through Wareham town? Was its bed, sea or 

 dry land, or under an ice sheet, during the long ages of 

 the glacial epoch ? And if you say Who is sufficient 

 for these things ? Who can answer these questions ? I 

 answer Who but you, or your pupils after you, if you 

 will but try ? 



And if any shall reply And what use if I do try ? 

 What use, if I do try ? What use if I succeed in 

 answering every question which you have propounded 

 to-night ? Shall I be the happier for it ? Shall I be 

 the wiser ? 



My friends, whether you will be the happier for it, 

 or for any knowledge of physical science, or for any 

 other knowledge whatsoever, I cannot tell : that lies in 

 the decision of a Higher Power than I ; and, indeed, to 

 speak honestly, I do not think that bio-geology or any 

 other branch of physical science is likely, at first at 

 least, to make you happy. Neither is the study of your 

 fellow-men. Neither is religion itself. We were not 

 sent into the world to be happy, but to be right ; at 

 least, poor creatures that we are, as right as we can 

 be ; and we must be content with being right, and not 

 happy. For I fear, or rather I hope, that most of us 

 are not capable of carrying out Talleyrand's recipe for 

 perfect happiness on earth namely, a hard heart and 

 a good digestion. Therefore, as our hearts are, happily, 

 not always hard, and our digestions, unhappily, not 

 always good, we will be content to be made wise by 

 physical science, even though we be not made happy. 



And we shall be made truly wise if we be made con- 

 tent ; content, too, not only with what we can under- 

 stand, but, content with what we do not understand 

 the habit of mind which theologians call and rightly 



