or as within the province of feeling, or that which, before 
the name was defiled, was called the zsthetic side of our 
nature, and which can neither be affirmed nor denied, but 
only felt and known. According to the classification 
which I have put before you then, the subjects of all 
knowledge are divisible into two groups, matters of sci- 
ence and matters of art; for all things with which the 
reasoning faculty alone is occupied come under the 
province of science, and, in the broadest sense, and not 
In the narrow and technical sense in which we are now 
accustomed to use the word art, all things feelable, all 
things which stir our emotions, come under the term of 
art, in the sense of subject matter of the zsthetic pro- 
- vince. So that we are shut up to this,—that the business 
of education is, in the first place, to provide the young 
with the means and the habit of observation; and, 
secondly, to supply the subject matters of knowledge, 
either in the shape of science or of art, or of both com- | l : 
| culture and information of those whom art addresses, the 
bined. Now, it is a very remarkable fact—but it is true 
of most things in this world—that there is hardly any- 
thing one-sided or of one nature, and it is not imme- 
diately obvious what, of the things that interest us, may 
be regarded as pure science, and what may be regarded 
as pure art. It may be that there are some peculiarly 
" constituted persons, who, before they have advanced far 
_into the depths of geometry, find artistic beauty about it, 
but, taking the generality of mankind, I think it may be 
said that when they begin to learn mathematics their 
whole souls are absorbed in tracing the connection 
between the premisses and the conclusions, and that to 
them, geometry is pure science. So I think it may be 
said that mechanics and osteology are pure science. On 
the other hand, melody in music is pure art. You cannot 
reason about it ; there is no proposition involved in it. 
So, again, in the pictorial art, an arabesque, or a ‘har- 
mony in grey,’ touch none but the esthetic faculty. But 
a great mathematician, and even “many persons who are | 
not great mathematicians, will tell you that they derive 
intense pleasure from geometrical reasonings. Every- 
body knows that mathematicians speak of solutions of 
problems as ‘elegant,’ and they tell you that a certain 
mass of mystic symbols is ‘ beautiful, quite lovely.’ Well, 
you do not see it. They do see it, because the intellectual 
process, the process of comprehending the reasons sym- 
Dolised by these figures and these signs, confers upon 
them a sort of pleasure, such as an artist has in visual 
symmetry. Take a science of which I may speak with 
more confidence, and which is the most attractive of those 
I am concerned with. It is what we call morphology, 
NAT 
URE 
. 
compositions of this kind, is essentially of the same 
nature as that which is derived from pursuits which are 
commonly regarded as purely intellectual. I mean that 
the source of pleasure is exactly the same as in most of 
my problems in morphology—that you have the theme in 
one of the old masters’ works followed out in all its end- 
less variations, always appearing and always reminding 
you of unity in variety. So in painting ; what is called 
truth to nature is the intellectual element coming in, and ~ 
| truth to nature depends entirely upon the intellectual 
| culture of the person to whom art is addressed. If you 
are in Australia, you may get credit for being a good — 
artist—I mean among the natives—if you can draw a 
kangaroo after a fashion. But among men of higher 
civilisation the intellectual knowledge we possess brings ~ 
its criticism into our appreciation of works of art, and we 
are obliged to satisfy it as well as the mere sense of 
beauty in colour and in outline. And so_the higher the 
more exact and precise must be what we call its ‘ Truth 
to nature.’ If we turn to literature, the same thing is 
true, and you find works of literature which may be said 
to be pureart. A little song of Shakespeare or of Goethe 
is pure art, although its intellectual content may be 
nothing. A Series of pictures is made to pass before your 
mind by the meaning of words, and the effect is a melody 
of ideas. Nevertheless the great mass of the literature 
we esteem is valued not merely because of having artistic 
form, but because of its intellectual content, and the 
value is the higher the more precise, distinct, and true 
is that intellectual content. And if you will let me fora 
moment speak of the very highest forms of literature, do 
we not regard them as highest simply because the more 
we know the truer they seem; and the more competent 
we are to appreciate beauty, the more beautiful they are ? 
No man ever understands Shakespeare until he is old, 
though the youngest may admire him; the reason being 
that he satisfies the artistic instinct of the youngest and 
harmonises with the ripest and richest experience of the 
oldest. I have said this much to draw your attention to 
what, to my mind, lies at the root of all this matter, and 
| at the understanding of one another by the men of science 
on the one hand, and the men of literature and history 
and art on the other. It is not a question whether one 
| order of study should predominate or that another should. 
which consists in tracing out the unity in variety of the | 
infinitely diversified structure of animals and plants. I 
cannot give you any example of a thoroughly zsthetic 
pleasure more intensely real than a pleasure of this kind 
—the pleasure which arises in one’s mind when a 
whole mass of different structures runs into one har- 
Mony as the expression of a central law. That is 
where the province of art overlaps and embraces the | 
province of intellect. And if I may venture to express 
an opinion on such a subject, the great majority of 
forms of art are not in the sense what I just now defined 
them to be—pure art; but they derive much of their | 
quality from simultaneous and even unconscious excite- 
ment of the intellect. When I was a boy I was very fond 
of music, and I am so now; and it so happened that I 
had the opportunity of hearing much good music. Among 
other things, I had abundant opportunities of hearing 
that great old master, Sebastian Bach. I remember per- 
fectly well—though I knew nothing about music then, and 
I may add know nothing whatever about it now—the 
intense satisfaction and delight which I had in listening 
by the hour together to Bach’s fugues. It is a pleasure 
which remains with me, I am glad to think; but of late 
It is a question of what topics of education you shall select 
which will combine all the needful elements in such due 
proportion as to give the greatest amount of food and 
support and encouragement to those faculties which 
enable us to appreciate truth, and to profit by those 
sources of innocent happiness which are open to us, and 
at the same time to avoid that which is bad and coarse 
and ugly, and to keep clear of the multitude of pitfalls and 
dangers which beset those who break through the natural 
or moral laws.” 
Professor Huxley then went on to point out the worth- 
lessness of the kind of literary education that used to 
prevail in English schools, and gave his idea of whata 
literary education ought to be. If, he said, he could 
make a clean sweep of everything, and start afresh, he 
would in the first place secure the training of the young 
in reading and writing, and in the habit of attention and 
observation both to that which is told them and that 
which they see; and he would make it absolutely neces- 
sary for everybody, for a longer or shorter period, to learn 
to draw, and there is nobody who cannot be made to draw 
more or less well. 
“‘ Then we come to the subject-matter, whether scien- 
tific or zsthetic, of education, and I should naturally 
have no question at all about teaching the elements 
of physical science of the kind I have sketched in 
a practical manner ; but among scientific topics, using 
years I have tried to find out the why and wherefore, and | the word ‘scientific’ in the broadest sense, I would 
it has often occurred to me that the pleasure, in musical | also include the elements of the theory of morals and 
