548 



NA TURE 



[SEPTEMhER 28, 1905 



phrase, " the harmonious expansion of all the powers which 

 make the beauty and worth of human nature." But 

 whether the scope which Arnold, at a particular moment, 

 assigned to culture was narrower or wider, the instrument 

 of culture with which he was chiefly concerned was always 

 literature. Culture requires us, he said, to know our- 

 selves and the w-orld ; and, as a means to this end, we 

 must " know the best that has been thought and said 

 in the world." By literature, then — as he once said in 

 reply to Huxley — he did not mean merely heWes Icltres ; 

 he included the books which record the great results of 

 science. But he insisted mainly on the best poetry and 

 the highest eloquence. In comparing science and literature 

 as general instruments of education, Arnold observed that 

 the power of intellect and knowledge is not the only one 

 that goes to the building-up of human life ; there is also 

 the power of conduct and the pow-er of beauty. Literature, 

 he said, serves to bring knowledge into relation with our 

 sense for conduct and our sense for beauty. The greater 

 and more fruitful is the progress of science, the greater 

 is the need for humane letters, to establish and maintain 

 a harmony between the new knowledge and those pro- 

 found, unchanging instincts of our nature. 



It is not surprising that, in the last third of the nine- 

 teenth century, .'\rnoId's fascinating advocacy of literature, 

 as the paramount agency of culture, should have incurred 

 some criticism from the standpoint of science and of philo- 

 sophy. The general drift of this criticism was that the 

 claim which he made for literature, though just in many 

 respects, was carried too far ; and also that his conception 

 of intellectual culture was inadequate. .\s a representative 

 of such criticism, I would take the eminent philosopher 

 whose own definition of culture has already been cited, 

 Henry Sidgwick : for no one, I think, could put more 

 incisivelv the particular point with which we are here 

 concerned. " Matthew Arnold's method of seeking truth," 

 says Sidgwick, "is a survival from a pre-scientific age. 

 He is a man of letters pure and simple ; and often seems 

 quite serenely unconscious of the intellectual limitations 

 of his type." The critic proceeds to enumerate some 

 things which, as he affirms, are " quite alien to the 

 habitual thought of a mere man of letters." They are 

 such as these : " How the crude matter of common experi- 

 ence is reduced to the order and system which constitutes 

 it an object of scientific knowledge ; how the precisest 

 possible conceptions are applied in the exact apprehension 

 and analysis of facts, and how by facts thus established 

 and analysed the conceptions in their turn are gradually 

 rectified ; how the laws of Nature are ascertained by the 

 combined processes of induction and deduction, provisional 

 assumption and careful verification ; how a general hypo- 

 thesis is used to guide inquiry, and, after due comparison 

 with ascertained particulars, becomes an accepted theory ; 

 and how a theory, receiving further confirmation, takes 

 its place finally as an organic part of a vast, living, ever- 

 growing system of knowledge." Sidgw'ick's conclusion is 

 as follows ; " Intellectual culture, at the end of the nine- 

 teenth century, must include as its most essential element 

 a scientific habit of mind ; and a scientific habit of mind 

 can only be acquired by the methodical study of some part 

 at least of what the human race has come scientifically 

 to know." 



There is nothing in that statement to which exception 

 need be taken by the firmest believer in the value of 

 literary education. The more serious and methodical 

 studies of literature demand, in some measure, a scientific 

 habit of mind, in the largest sense of that expression ; 

 such a habit is necessary, for instance, in the study of 

 history, in the scientific study of language, and in the 

 " higher criticism." Nor, again, does anyone question 

 that the studies of the natural sciences are instruments 

 of intellectual culture of the highest order. The powers of 

 observation and of reasoning are thereby disciplined in 

 manifold ways ; and the scientific habit of mind so formed 

 is in itself an education. To define and describe the modes 

 in which that discipline operates on the mind is a task 

 for the man of science ; it could not, of course, be attempted 

 by anyone whose own training has been wholly literary. 

 But there is one fact which may be noted by any intelligent 

 observer. Many of our most eminent teachers of science, 

 NO. 1874, VOL. 72] 



and more especially of science in its technical applications, 

 insist on a demand which, in the province of science, is 

 analogous to a demand made in the province of literary 

 study by those who wish such study to be a true instru- 

 ment of culture. As the latter desire that literature should 

 be a means of educating the student's intelligence and 

 sympathies, so the teachers of science, whether pure or 

 applied, insist on the necessity of cultivating the scientific 

 imagination, of developing a power of initiative in the 

 learner, and of draw'ing out his inventive faculties. They 

 urge that, in the interests of the technical industries them- 

 selves, the great need is for a training which shall be 

 more than technical — which shall be thoroughly scientific. 

 Wherever scientific and technical education attains its 

 highest forms in institutions of Lniversity rank, the aim 

 is not merely to form skilled craftsmen, but to produce 

 men who can contribute to the advance of their respectiv'- 

 sciences and arts, men who can originate and invent. 

 There is a vast w'orld-competition in scientific progress, on 

 which industrial and commercial progress must ultimately 

 depend ; and it is of national importance for every country 

 that it should have men who are not merely expert in 

 things already know'n, but who can take their places in 

 the forefront of the onward march. 



But meanw-hile the claims of literary culture, as part 

 of the general higher education, must not be neglected or 

 undervalued. It may be that, in the pre-scientific age, 

 those claims were occasionally stated in a somewhat 

 e.xaggerated or one-sided manner. But it remains as true 

 as ever that literary studies form an indispensable element 

 of a really liberal education. .'Knd the educational value 

 of good literature is all the greater in our day, because 

 the progress of knowledge more and more enforces early 

 specialisation. Good literature tends to preserve the 

 breadth and variety of intellectual interests. It also tends 

 to cultivate the sympathies; it exerts a humanising in- 

 fluence by the clear and beautiful expression of noble 

 thoughts and sentiments ; by the contemplation of great 

 actions and great characters ; by following the varied 

 development of human life, not only as an evolution 

 governed by certain laws, but also as a drama full cf 

 interests which intimately concern us. Moreover, as has 

 well been said, if literature be viewed as one of the fire 

 arts, it is found to be the most altruistic of them all, 

 since it can educate a sensibility for other forms of beauty 

 besides its own. The genius of a Ruskin can quicken 

 our feeling for masterpieces of architecture, sculpture, and 

 painting. Even a very limited study of literature, if it be 

 only of the right quality, may provide permanent springs 

 of refreshment for those whose principal studies and 

 occupations are other than literary. We may recall here 

 some weighty words written by one of the very greatest 

 of modern men of science. " If I had to live my life 

 again," said Charles Darwin, " I would have made it a 

 rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at 

 least once every week. . . . The loss of these tastes is a 

 loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the 

 intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by 

 enfeebling the emotional part of our nature." The same 

 lesson is enforced by John Stuart Mill, in that remarkable 

 passage of his Autobiography where he describes how, 

 while still a youth, he became aware of a serious defect, 

 a great lacuna, in that severe intellectual training which, 

 for him, had commenced in childhood. It was a training 

 from which the influences of imaginative literature had 

 been rigidly excluded. He turned to that literature for 

 mental relief, and found what he wanted in the poetry of 

 Wordsworth. " I had now learned by experience " — this 

 is his comment — " that the passive susceptibilities needed 

 to be cultivated as w-ell as the active capacities, and re- 

 quired to be nourished and enriched as well as guided." 

 Nor is it merely to the happiness and mental w'ell-being 

 of the individual that literature can minister. Bv render- 

 ing his intelligence more flexible, by deepening his 

 humanity, by increasing his power of comprehending 

 others, by fostering worthy ideals, it will add something 

 to his capacity for cooperating with his fellows in every 

 station of life and in every phase of action ; it will make 

 him a better citizen, and not only a more sympathetic but 

 also a more efficient member of society. 



