57 



majestic presence. But so strictly limited are her 

 promises and powers, about so much that we might wish 

 to know does she offer no information whatever, that at 

 other moments we are fain to call her results but a vain 

 thing, and to reject them as a stone when we had asked 

 for bread. If one aspect of the subject encourages our 

 hopes, so does the other tend to chasten our desires ; 

 and he is perhaps the wisest, and in the long run the 

 happiest among his fellows, who has learnt not only 

 Mathematics, but also the larger lesson which they 

 indirectly teach, namely, to temper our aspirations 

 to that which is possible, to moderate our desires to 

 that which is attainable, to restrict our hopes to that of 

 which accomplishment, if not immediately practicable, 

 is at least distinctly within the range of conception. 

 That which is at present beyond our ken may, at some 

 period and in some manner as yet unknown to us, fall 

 within our grasp ; but our science teaches us, while evei* 

 yearning with Goethe for *' Light, more light," to con- 

 centrate our attention upon that of which our powers 

 are capable, and contentedly to leave for future ex- 

 perience the solution of problems to which we can at 

 present say neither yea nor nay. 



It is within the region thus indicated that know- 

 ledge in the true sense of the word is to be sought. 

 Other modes of influence there are in society and in 

 individual life, other forms of energy beside that of 

 intellect. There is the potential energy of sympathy, 

 the actual energy of work ; there are the vicissitudes of 

 life, the diversity of circumstance, health, and disease, 

 and all the perplexing issues, whether for good or for evil, 

 of impulse and of passion. But although the book of 

 life cannot at present be read by the light of Science 

 alone, nor the wayfarers be satisfied by the few loaves of 



