NATURAL SCIENCE TO GENERAL SCIENCE. 19 



some one or other of the laws actually laid down are 

 quite exceptional. Such exceptions there will always be, 

 for the legislation of man can never have the absolute 

 consistency and perfection of the laws of nature. In 

 such cases there is no course open but to try and guess 

 the intention of the legislator ; or, if needs be, to 

 supplement it after the analogy of his decisions in 

 similar cases. 



Grammar and jurisprudence have a certain advantage 

 as means of training the intellect, inasmuch as they tax 

 pretty equall}^ all the intellectual powers. On this account 

 secondary education among modern European nations is 

 based mainly upon the grammatical study of foreign 

 languages. The motlier-tongue and modern foreign lan- 

 guages, when acquired solely by practice, do not call for 

 any conscious logical exercise of thought, though we may 

 cultivate by means of them an appreciation for artistic 

 beauty of expression. The two classical languages, Latin 

 and Grreek, have, besides their exquisite logical subtlety 

 and aesthetic beauty, an additional advantage, which they 

 seem to possess in common with most ancient and original 

 languages — they indicate accurately the relations of words 

 and sentences to each other by numerous and distinct 

 inflexions. Languages are, as it were, abraded by long 

 use ; grammatical distinctions are cut down to a mini- 

 mum for the sake of brevity and rapidity of expression, 

 and are thus made less and less definite, as is obvious from 

 the comparison of any modern European language with 

 Latin ; in English the process has gone further than in 

 any other. This seems to me to be really the reason why 

 the modern languages are far less fitted than the ancient 

 for instruments of education.' 



* Those to whom German is not a foreign tongiie may, perhaps, be per- 

 mitted to hold different views on the efficacy of modern languages in 

 education. — Tb. 



