GERMAN SCIENCE 



surely, may be, and has been the case, with the pursuit of purely 

 literary studies. 1 



Of all the distinctions that -I dislike, none seems more 

 misleading than that of calling literary studies the 'Humanities '. 

 It leads almost inevitably to the inference that the rest of 

 knowledge consists of inhumanities. I would not say a word 

 of disrespect for the so-called humanities, for I have no dis- 

 respectful thought concerning them as I conceive they should 

 be, and as they really are apart from pedants. The proper 

 study of mankind may be man ; and human history, the 

 human wisdom of our forefathers, human piety and human 

 poetry, the study of the human mind, will always have their 

 assured place. But outside man stands the rest of Nature, 

 the Universe. The exploration of that, the unravelling of all 

 the phenomena of the Heavens and the Earth, the revelation 

 of natural law that was before man was, that will remain when 

 man may well have ceased to be that surely is a study 

 which should not be belittled by any exclusive term. That 

 surely is not a study which, properly conceived and properly 

 pursued, will make a man -or a people arrogant, mechanical, 

 unimaginative or impious. The time I think may come when 

 everyone who now rightly thinks himself in darkness if he has 

 not some love or knowledge of the humanities, will be not any 

 less ashamed to be heedless or ignorant of the natural sciences, 

 which, if it is desired to denote them by a single word, might, 

 I think, without any impropriety be called the divinities. 



The danger of science undoubtedly lies in the rich material 

 fruits that it inevitably sheds in its luxuriant growth. These 

 are a temptation to the carnal mind, and I would say as soon 

 as anyone, Woe be to the man or to the nation that sets its 

 heart on these alone ! 



Such a danger may be said to exist in modern Germany, 



1 It cannot be too emphatically stated that the school discipline of 

 Germany was not based on scientific studies. (January 1921.) 



