SCIENCE AND ART AND EDUCATION 165 



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business of education is, in the first place, to provide the 

 young with the means and the habit of observation; and, 

 secondly, to supply the subject-matter of knowledge either 

 in the shape of science or of art, or of both combined. 



Now, it is a very remarkable fact — but it is true of most 

 things in this world — that there is hardly anything one- 

 sided, or of one nature; and it is not immediately obvious 

 what of the things that interest us may be regarded as pure 

 science, and what may be regarded as pure art. It may be 

 that there are some peculiarly constituted persons, who, 

 before they have advanced far into the depths of geometry, 

 find artistic beauty about it; but, taking the generality of 

 mankind, I think it may be said that, when they begin to 

 learn mathematics, their whole souls are absorbed in trac- 

 ing the connection between the premises and the conclu- 

 sion, and that to them geometry is pure science. So I think 

 it may be said that mechanics and osteology are pure science. 

 On the other hand, melody in music is pure art. You can- 

 not reason about it; there is no proposition involved in it. 

 So, again, in the pictorial art, an arabesque, or a " harmony 

 in grey," touches none but the aesthetic faculty. But a 

 great mathematician, and even many persons who are not 

 great mathematicians, will tell you that they derive immense 

 pleasure from geometrical reasonings. Everybody knows 

 mathematicians speak of solutions and problems as "ele- 

 gant," and they tell you that a certain mass of mystic sym- 

 bols is "beautiful, quite lovely." Well, you do not see it. 

 They do see it, because the intellectual process, the process 

 of comprehending the reasons symbolised by these figures 

 and these signs, confers upon them a sort of pleasure, such 

 as an arti?* has in visual symmetry. Take a science of 

 which I may speak with more confidence, and which is 

 the most attractive of those I am concerned with. It is 



