Art and Science 



itself sufficient, the historical mode of study- 

 ing any question is the only one which will 

 enable us to comprehend it effectually. The 

 personal element cannot be eliminated from 

 the consideration of works written by living 

 persons for living persons. We want to know 

 who is who whom we can depend upon to 

 have no other end than the making things 

 clear to himself and his readers, and whom we 

 should mistrust as having an ulterior aim on 

 which he is more intent than on the further- 

 ing of our better understanding. We want to 

 know who is doing his best to help us, and 

 who is only trying to make us help him, or to 

 bolster up the system in which his interests 

 are vested. There is nothing that will throw 

 more light upon these points than the way in 

 which a man behaves towards those who have 

 worked in the same field with himself, and, 

 again, than his style. A man's style, as 

 Buffon long since said, is the man himself. 

 By style, I do not, of course, mean grammar 

 or rhetoric, but that style of which Buffon 

 again said that it is like happiness, and vient 



de la douceur de Tame. When we find a 



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