NOVEMBEK 5, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



647 



insistency with which the importance of activ- 

 ity is emphasized. Even where amusement is 

 recognized as sometimes worth while, and rest 

 as sometimes necessary they are countenanced 

 only because constant work is, in experience, 

 impossible. 



Eest, therefore, is not an end, because it is 

 adopted with a view to working afterwards. 



Happiness itself is repeatedly defined as " a 

 working in the way of excellence." When 

 Aristotle finds the highest happiness in intel- 

 lectual contemplation, he explicitly justifies 

 himself on the ground that intellectual con- 

 templation is itself the exercise of the highest 

 of human faculties, of that of the mind. Aris- 

 totle hardly pauses upon this point, before he 

 goes forward to point out that the thoroughly 

 wise man must proceed, if he would achieve all 

 the happiness within his reach by making his 

 wisdom effective, to do exactly what Pro- 

 fessor Harrison is urging, to interest himself 

 in public afPairs, and thus find for his wisdom 

 the greatest possible usefulness. The politics 

 and ethics of Aristotle are tied together by this 

 dependence of the highest happiness of the 

 truly wise man upon public activity. 



With the Greek historian and the Greek 

 moulder of the world's thought on record as 

 they are, it would be superfluous to quote, as 

 might be done, from many other Greeks; and 

 Greek history is too generally familiar to make 

 it worth while to refer to the wealth of Greek 

 achievement. As the histories of the two peo- 

 ple are usually read, Hebrew culture and his- 

 tory were, in comparison with the Greek, noth- 

 ing but an almost unbroken oriental slumber. 

 The single great Hebrew achievement was the 

 enunciation of faith. 



Greek ideals are constantly urged, and Greek 

 examples constantly held before us. If we 

 vrere to let ourselves imagine that the accept- 

 ance of these ideals and these examples involve 

 any kind of inactivity, it would be a calamity. 

 The trend of human views and human ideals 

 has for a long time been away from the 

 Hebrew, and toward the Hellenic. It is not 

 Hebraism which is just now " exuberant." 

 There is rather too little willingness in the 

 -world to-day to trust any light, if its source 



lies beyond our reach. But it is a most im- 

 perfect form of Hellenism which is " exub- 

 erant." Greek activity was intellectual enough 

 to keep its aims, even the most ultimate, 

 fairly well in view. A very large part of mod- 

 ern activity is so blind to any aims, except 

 the most immediate, that it has no means of 

 testing the validity and worthiness of even 

 such aims as are within its vision. Greek 

 thought kept happiness in view as the goal of 

 effort, and examined this goal with such care 

 that Greek opinion concerning it is very gen- 

 erally held to-day by those who are familiar 

 with Greek opinion. Modern thought has 

 added amazingly little to Greek views. 



Knowledge has been mailing amazing strides. 

 But aside from medicine, modern knowledge 

 contributes infinitely less than it should to the 

 attainment of the ultimate goal. I do not 

 know that the world was happier at any past 

 time than it is now, but am very sure that 

 there is very far from being the happiness now 

 that there ought to be. The advance in 

 knowledge during the past haK century has not 

 been accompanied by any corresponding devel- 

 opment of happiness. Indeed, we do need to 

 exert ourselves to make our knowledge worth 

 while. We should study to understand what 

 happiness is, and how we can make our activ- 

 ities effective in achieving it. When we do 

 this, each in such measure as he can, we shall 

 act according to the best Hellenic ideals, 

 ideals not merely held by the Greeks, but ex- 

 pressed by them more perfectly, I believe, than 

 has ever been done since. 



e. b. oopkland 



College of Agkictjlture, 

 Los Bancs, P. I. 



UNIVEESITIES AND UNPREPAREDNESS 



The majority of persons are so absorbed in 

 the events of the European war that little at- 

 tention is paid to the consideration of methods 

 by which this nation could coordinate and use 

 its intellectual resources to the best advantage 

 in making some positive contribution towards 

 the rehabilitation of civilization. We should 

 expect the universities to be keenly alive to 

 the necessity for supplying the leaders of 



