22 THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. i 
appointed hopes, their grim futures—and those men of letters are 
the best loved who have performed literature’s truest office.” 
And here I might use an illustration from Physiology. One of 
the peculiar properties of the digestive system is its power of render- 
ing tainted food, harmless, but in time, food of that kind will produce 
dyspepsia. So also it might be said of unfit literature, a healthy 
mind can make a proper use_of it for a time, but even the most 
healthy is liable to give way at last. Ina lecture I heard last sum- 
mer by Prof. Griggs, of the Leland-Stanford University on the ‘“ Art 
of Living,” he said that some nations it is said, can live on Arsenic, 
but it is a peculiar taste, and some people also could live on lies. 
So also might it be said of some classes of literature, Charlotte Bronte 
in speaking of some French novels, remarked, ‘‘ They leave such a 
bad taste in my mouth,” and like her, I would say it is not only far 
pleasanter, but also more profitable to read those books that do not 
strain the literary taste. 
However, I would prefer now to offer some suggestions from a 
standpoint other than that of my own profession, although I might 
be pardoned I trust, if I borrowed a line of reasoning from it. 
I refer to the fact that students of human anatomy and physi- 
ology find their investigations much assisted by studies in comparative 
anatomy, or that of other animals and even plants. 
So then to-night, I wish to point out some lines of study that I 
think might well be conducted as aids to the study of Literature on 
account of the parallelism of their development and growth. 
This parallelism is, I think, especially noticeable in the Archi- 
tecture and Art of a country, for they are all three closely associated. 
When we begin to trace the history of a nation or nations, we 
cannot but be impressed by the fact that man early found the neces- 
sity for Art and also the pressing need of Literature, for unable by 
his own individual powers to overcome the beasts to which he was 
born mentally superior, he found himself obliged to communicate 
with his fellows by other method than that of speech or gesture. 
The method therefore adopted was primarily that of hierogly- 
phics, which were at first pictures, probably of animals conquered in 
the chase, or to be avoided, as well as of other objects constantly 
brought to their notice. Each of these pictures became in time 
corrupted, certain prominent lines taking the place of the whole and 
