208 UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL vin 



On the face of the matter, it is absurd to ask 

 whether it is more important to know the limits of 

 one's powers ; or the ends for which they ought to 

 be exerted ; or the conditions under which they 

 must be exerted. One may as well inquire which 

 of the terms of a Rule of Three sum one ought to 

 know, in order to get a trustworthy result. Prac- 

 tical life is such a sum, in which your duty multi- 

 plied into your capacity, and divided by your 

 circumstances, gives you the fourth term in the 

 proportion, which is your deserts, with great 

 accuracy. All agree, I take it, that men ought 

 to have these three kinds of knowledge. The so- 

 called " conflict of studies " turns upon the ques- 

 tion of how they may best be obtained. 



The founders of Universities held the theory 

 that the Scriptures and Aristotle taken together, 

 the latter being limited by the former, contained 

 all knowledge worth having, and that the business 

 of philosophy was to interpret and co-ordinate 

 these two. I imagine that in the twelfth century 

 this was a very fair conclusion from known facts. 

 Nowhere in the world, in those days, was there 

 such an encyclopedia of knowledge of all three 

 classes, as is to be found in those writings. The 

 scholastic philosophy is a wonderful monument of 

 the patience and ingenuity with which the human 

 mind toiled to build up a logically consistent 

 theory of the Universe, out of such materials. 

 And that philosophy is by no means dead and 



