VII SCIENCE AND ART AND EDUCATION 179 



and you find works of literature which may be 

 said to be pure art. A little song of Shakespeare 

 or of Goethe is pure art ; it is exquisitely beautiful, 

 although its intellectual content may be nothing. 

 A series of pictures is made to pass before your 

 mind by the meaning of words, and the effect is a 

 melody of ideas. Nevertheless, the great mass of 

 the literature we esteem is valued, not merely 

 because of having artistic form, but because of its 

 intellectual content ; and the value is the higher 

 the more precise, distinct, and true is that intel- 

 lectual content. And, if you will let me for a 

 moment speak of the very highest forms of 

 literature, do we not regard them as highest 

 simply because the more we know the truer they 

 seem, and the more competent we are to appre- 

 ciate beauty the more beautiful they are ? No 

 man ever understands Shakespeare until he is old, 

 though the youngest may admire him, the reason 

 being that he satisfies the artistic instinct of the 

 youngest and harmonises with the ripest and 

 richest experience of the oldest. 



I have said this much to draw your attention 

 to what, to my mind, lies at the root of all this 

 matter, and at the understanding of one another 

 by the men of science on the one hand, and - the 

 men of literature, and history, and art, on the 

 other. It is not a question whether one order of 

 study or another should predominate. It is a 

 question of what topics of education you shall 



