DOGMA TIC ME THODS OF TEA CHING. 79 



only imparting certain and undoubtedly ascertained 

 facts ? Who has not, on the contrary, found that the 

 charm and value of his instruction lay precisely in 

 propounding the problems which link themselves 

 with those facts, and in teaching the uncertain theories 

 and fluctuating hypotheses which may serve to solve 

 these problems ? Or is there for the young and strug- 

 gling mind anything better, or more conducive to cul- 

 ture, than to exercise the intelligence in problems of 

 investigation ? 



How unpractical and how absurd is Virchow's 

 demand that only ascertained facts and no problematic 

 theories shall be admitted in teaching will be still 

 more strikingly shown by a glance over the remaining 

 provinces of human knowledge. What, indeed, will 

 be left of history, of philology, of political science, of 

 jurisprudence, if we restrict the teaching of them to 

 absolutely-ascertained and established facts. What of 

 " science " will remain to them if the idea which en- 

 deavours to discern the causes of the facts is banished ? 

 if the problems, the theories, the hypotheses, which 

 seek these causes may not be generally taught ? And 

 that philosophy the science of knowing by which 

 all the common results of human knowledge are to be 

 bound up into one grand and harmonious whole that 

 philosophy, I say, must not be generally taught, is, 

 according to Virchow, quite self-evident. 



