SCIENCE, EDUCATION, AND ARISTOCRACY. 485 



Brassey, great captains of labor, who led men not only over Europe, 

 but over every quarter of the globe, and changed the whole face of 

 the earth by their vast engineering power and skill." Not being a 

 " materialist," this is the kind of science his lordship likes best. Next, 

 there is a class of scientific men who accept " material philosophy and 

 scientific teaching as their surest and safest standard and guide .... 

 but whose minds were nevertheless open to other considerations, and 

 who did not feel it was the sole and exclusive standard of their lives." 

 As science tempered by " other considerations " would be acceptable 

 to Pope Pius himself, we need not be surprised that to this Lord Car- 

 narvon has no objection. It is for a third class of scientific men he 

 reserves his denunciation. There is, it appears, a class — if, indeed, so 

 small a body of men can be called a class — who carry the scientific 

 frame of mind " into the complex relations of human life, into politics 

 and social philosophy, and into all the relations which affect men 

 toward one another." The influence of this little class is growing, 

 Lord Carnarvon tells us ; and we are convinced that he is right. 

 Now, at this he is very much terrified. If only those naughty scien- 

 tific men would keep to engineering and physics, his lordship would 

 not care ; but what he objects to is " the application of those rules, 

 which naturally and rightly govern abstract science, to legislation, 

 morals, social , life." In other words, scientific men may settle the dis- 

 tance of the sun from the earth at what figure they like, and they may 

 build bridges and construct railroads ; but, if they apply the same logi- 

 cal processes which they have found serve them so well in the ma- 

 terial world to the solution of social and political problems, this is 

 really too much for patrician nerves. There is a hardness about the 

 scientific method which Lord Carnarvon does not like. If it were not 

 for this diabolical device, we might come to any conclusions on social 

 matters which fit in with our predilections or interests ; but, with the 

 " grinding, rigid despotism " of logic, this is impossible. All that 

 manly independence of our premisses which occasionally characterizes 

 our conclusions on political matters would be gone forever, and " one 

 intellectual power " would " exert an exclusive rule over " us. 



Lord Carnarvon did not content himself with a mere depreciation 

 of social and political science, but attempted to point out its short- 

 comings. It is, he thinks, " devoid of the milk of human kindness." 

 This is quite true, and a much wider truth than stated. It is as true 

 of the multiplication-table as of scientific politics. But, when Lord 

 Carnarvon, showing a little of that individual freedom which he 

 despairs of keeping, argues that, because sciance is " no safeguard 

 or guarantee of itself for tenderness and affection," therefore, those 

 who are thoroughly imbued with the scientific spirit trample on and 

 despise affection and tenderness for their fellow-creatures, he is appeal- 

 ing to one of the most foolish of prejudices in support of one of the 

 most disingenuous of arguments. The love of truth, for its own sake, 



