VI SCIENCE AND CULTURE 149 



the day ; and the great reform which they 

 effected was of incalculable service to mankind. 

 But the Nemesis of all reformers is finality ; and 

 the reformers of education, like those of religion, 

 fell into the profound, however common, error of 

 mistaking the beginning for the end of the work 

 of reformation. 



The representatives of the Humanists, in the 

 nineteenth century, take their stand upon classical 

 education as the sole avenue to culture, as firmly 

 as if we were still in the age of Renascence. 

 Yet, surely, the present intellectual relations of 

 the modern and the ancient worlds are profoundly 

 different from those which obtained three cen- 

 turies ago. Leaving aside the existence of a 

 great and characteristically modern literature, of 

 modern painting, and, especially, of modern 

 music, there is one feature of the present state of 

 the civilised world which separates it more widely 

 from the Renascence, than the Renascence was 

 separated from the middle ages. 



This distinctive character of our own times lies 

 in the vast and constantly increasing part which 

 is played by natural knowledge. Not only is our 

 daily life shaped by it, not only does the pros- 

 perity of millions of men depend upon it, but 

 our whole theory of life has long been influenced, 

 consciously or unconsciously, by the general con- 

 ceptions of the universe, which have been forced 

 upon us by physical science. 



