30 BEPOKT— -1878. 



may admire the ingenuity displayed in the logical machines of Earl 

 Stanhope and of Stanley Jevons, in the ' Formal Logic ' of De Morgan, 

 and in the ' Calculus ' of Boole ; although as mathematicians we may feel 

 satisfaction that these feats (the possibility of which was clear a priori) 

 have been actually accomplished ; yet we must bear in mind that their 

 application is really confined to cases where the subject-matter is perfectly 

 uniform in character, and that beyond this range they are liable to 

 encumber rather than to assist thought. 



Not unconnected with this intimate association of ideas and their 

 expression is the fact that, whichever may have been cause, which- 

 ever effect, or whether both may not in turn have acted as cause and 

 effect, the culminating age of classic art was contemporaneous with the 

 first great development of mathematical science. In an earlier part of 

 this discourse I have alluded to the importance of mathematical precision 

 recognised in the technique of art during the Cinquecento ; and I have 

 now time only to add that on looking still further back it would seem 

 that sculpture and painting, architecture and music, nay even poetry 

 itself, received a new, if not their first true, impulse at the period when 

 geometric form appeared fresh chiselled by the hand of the mathematician, 

 and when the first ideas of harmony and proportion rang joyously 

 together in the morning tide of art. 



Whether the views on which I have here insisted be in any way 

 novel, or whether they be merely such as from habit or from inclination 

 are usually kept out of sight, matters little. But whichever be the case, 

 they may still furnish a solvent of that rigid aversion which both Literature 

 and Art are too often inclined to maintain towards Science of all kinds. 

 It is a very old story that, to know one another better, to dwell upon, 

 similarities rather than upon diversities, are the first stages towards a 

 better understanding between two parties ; but in few cases has it a truer 

 application than in that here discussed. To recognise the common 

 growth of scientific and other instincts until the time of harvest is not 

 only conducive to a rich crop, but it is also a matter of prudence, lest in 

 trying to root up weeds from among the wheat, we should at the same 

 time root up that which is as valuable as wheat. When Pascal's father 

 had shut the door of his son's study to mathematics, and closeted him 

 with Latin and Greek, he found on his return that the walla were 

 teeming with formulae and figures, the more congenial product of the 

 boy's mind. Fortunately for the boy, and fortunately also for Science, 

 the mathematics were not torn up, but were suffered to grow together 

 with other subjects. And all said and done, the lad waa not the worse 

 scholar or man of letters in the end. But, truth to tell, considering the 

 severance which still subsists in education and during our early years 

 between Literature and Science, we can hardly wonder if when thrown 

 together in the afterwork of life they should meet as strangers ; or if the 

 severe garb, the curious implements, and the strange waives of the latter 



