NATURAL SCIENCE TO GENERAL SCIENCE. 



or even a considerable portion of it. Is it still reasonable to 

 keep them together in one place of education ? Is the union 

 of the four faculties to form one University a mere relic of the 

 Middle Ages 1 Many valid arguments have been adduced for 

 separating them. Why not dismiss the medical faculty to the 

 hospitals of our great towns, the scientific men to the Poly- 

 technic Schools, and form special seminaries for the theologians 

 and jurists? Long may the German universities be preserved 

 from such a fate ! Then, indeed, would the connection between 

 the different sciences be finally broken. How essential that 

 connection is, not only from an university point of view, as 

 tending to keep alive the intellectual energy of the country, but 

 also on material grounds, to secure the successful application of 

 that energy, will be evident from a few considerations. 



First, then, I would say that union of the different faculties 

 is necessary to maintain a healthy equilibrium among the in- 

 tellectual energies of students. Each study tries certain of our 

 intellectual faculties more than the rest, and strengthens them 

 accordingly by constant exercise. But any sort of one-sided 

 development is attended with danger ; it disqualifies us for 

 using those faculties that are less exercised, and so renders us 

 less capable of a general view ; above all it leads us to overvalue 

 ourselves. Any one who has found himself much more suc- 

 cessful than others in some one department of intellectual labour, 

 is apt to forget that there are many other things which they can 

 do better than he can : a mistake I would have every student 

 remember which is the worst enemy of all intellectual 

 activity. 



How many men of ability have forgotten to practise that 

 criticism of themselves which is so essential to the student, and 

 so hard to exercise, or have been completely crippled in their 

 progress, because they have thought dry, laborious drudgery 

 beneath them, and have devoted all their energies to the quest 

 of brilliant theories and wonder-working discoveries ! How 

 many such men have become bitter misanthropes, and put an end 

 to a melancholy existence, because they have failed to obtain 

 among their fellows that recognition which must be won by 



