SCIENCE, EDUCATION, AND ARISTOCRACY. 481 



standard as they would apply. If such views as they held were 

 pushed to an extreme, he could scarcely imagine a Pharisee more 

 arrogant, a Sadducee more self-opinioned, a fanatical monk of the 

 middle ages more intolerant than they who practised them were 

 likely to be. 



He might be asked the reason for all this. Some might say it was 

 a reaction from the extreme dogmatism of past times ; and it was 

 undoubtedly true, as every careful student of history would admit, 

 that there had been an excess of dogmatism in former days. The- 

 ology, for instance, had encroached upon the fair and reasonable 

 domain of science, had sometimes thrown obstacles in its way, and 

 had subordinated science to most mistaken and unreasonable interpre- 

 tations of Scripture. On the other hand, there was now a risk that 

 science might possibly encroach a little on the domain of theology. 

 At all events, it seemed to him there were reasons why what he had 

 just now said should be the case. In the first place, unlike other 

 studies, it must always be remembered that the conclusions of abstract 

 science were demonstrable. Those who dealt in them were so satisfied 

 of their certainty that they could not accept any conjecture or doubt 

 on the point. There were branches of science in which that was per- 

 fectly true, as in the case of mathematics, where in certain propositions 

 no reasonable- man, applying the ordinary laws of thought, could 

 doubt certain results — such, for instance, as that two and two were 

 four. There were other branches to which that did not equally apply, 

 but one thing was certain — that those who would carry that frame of 

 mind into the complex relations of human life, into political and social 

 philosophy, and into all the relations which affect men one toward 

 another, were applying a standard which was wholly impracticable, 

 and which would ultimately lead to mere confusion. 



In the next place, he would again say that, unlike other studies, 

 mere hard, abstract science did divorce itself from literature, and 

 almost repudiated religion ; and he thought no man who looked back 

 over the varied course not only of the middle age history, but of the 

 whole history of the world and of mankind, could doubt that, what- 

 ever might have been their shortcomings, defects, and excesses, men 

 owed to the influence of literature and religion far more than they 

 could express, far more than they were likely to admit, and far more 

 than he could attempt to describe on that occasion. At all events, 

 they had exercised the softest and most refining influence upon man- 

 kind. Undesirable as it was for men that any one intellectual power, 

 so to speak, should exert an exclusive rule over them, or enjoy a mo- 

 nopoly of authority, he freely admitted that he would prefer the 

 authority of literature and the arts to that of mere pure, hard, abstract 

 science. Art had been well termed " the handmaid of religion," and 

 literature had formed a republic of letters; and their rule, though 

 variable, unjust, and even unequal, would not be the grinding, rigid 



VOL. IV. — 81 



