310 Darwinism and Other Essays. 



languages the basis of their instruction. The 

 progress of modern discovery may greatly modify 

 the circumstances under which this arrangement 

 was originally made, but it can never entirely do 

 away with them. Sanskrit, for instance, the im- 

 mense importance of which we would be the last 

 to underrate, can never be placed upon an equal 

 footing with Latin and Greek. Valmiki and Kal- 

 idasa, says Mommsen, are the precious treasures 

 of literary botanists, but Homer and Sophokles 

 bloom in our own garden. With Indian civili- 

 zation we are but remotely connected ; and our 

 obligations to Caesar, Paul, and Aristotle will 

 ever be infinitely greater than to Kanada or Sak- 

 yamuni. The noble thoughts of Hellenic philos- 

 ophers and Roman jurists have not only helped 

 to inaugurate modern civilization, but have since 

 continually reacted upon it. The impulse given 

 to jurisprudence by the discovery of Justinian's 

 Pandects at Amalfi may have been exaggerated 

 by uncritical historians, as Hallam and Savigny 

 have maintained. But the Renaissance, with its 

 innumerable consequences, will remain forever an 

 abiding refutation of the detractors of classical 

 studies. Well might the renewal of intercourse 

 with antiquity be called a new birth for the mod- 

 ern mind ; it nerved it with vigour for its greatest 



