UXIVEESITIES: ACTUAL AND IDEAL. 49 



having ; and that the business of philosophy was to in- 

 terpret 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 encyclopaedia of knowledge of all three 

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

 lastic philosophy is a wonderful monument of the pa- 

 tience 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 buried, as many vainly suppose. On 

 the contrary, numbers of men of no mean learning and 

 accomplishment, and sometimes of rare power and sub- 

 tlety of thought, hold by it as the best theory of things 

 which has yet been stated. And, what is still more re- 

 markable, men who speak the language of modern phi- 

 losophy, nevertheless think the thoughts of the school- 

 men. " The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands 

 are the hands of Esau." Every day I hear "Cause," 

 "Law," "Force," "Vitality," spoken of as entities, by 

 people who can enjoy Swift's joke about the meat-roast- 

 ing quality of the smoke-jack, and comfort themselves 

 with the reflection that they are not even as those be- 

 nighted schoolmen. 



Well, this great system had its day, and then it was 

 sapped and mined by two influences. The first was the 

 study of classical literature, which familiarised men with 

 methods of philosophising ; with conceptions of the 

 highest Good ; with ideas of the order of Nature ; with 



