16 EMILE BOUTROUX 



seeker naturally forms with those who pursue 

 the solution of the same problems, by the joy 

 which one feels in possessing a blessing as real 

 as it is sublime — to develop in oneself, in the 

 most certain way, moral virtue. 



By general consent, scientific study and re- 

 search are not only the acquisition of knowl- 

 edge — an external enriching of the mind ; they 

 are literally a culture. They may indeed be 

 called the necessary and sufficient culture. 

 There is, indeed, no essential faculty of the 

 human soul which science does not develop and 

 direct in the best way. And, so far as those 

 sides of our nature are concerned which require 

 for their development the rejection of scientific 

 influence, they should be considered — not as 

 permanent characteristics of man, but as sur- 

 vivals of a past condition which it is highly 

 desirable to obliterate. 



Such seems to be today, in the words of 

 some of her representatives, the ambition of 

 science. If that pretension is well founded, 

 the ancient conflict of science and culture is 

 at last ended. Science has definitely con- 

 quered and no counter triumph of culture as 



