ON SCIENCE AND ART 153 



our appreciation of works of art, and we are obliged to 

 satisfy it, as well as the mere sense of beauty in colour 

 and in outline. And so, the higher the culture and in- 

 formation of those whom art addresses, the more exact 

 and precise must be what we call its "truth to nature." 



If we turn to literature, the same thing is true, and you 

 find works of literature which may be said to be pure 

 art. A little song of Shakespeare or of Goethe is pure 

 art; it is exquisitely beautiful, although its intellectual 

 content may be nothing. A series of pictures is made 

 to pass before your mind by the meaning of words, and 

 the effect is a melody of ideas. Nevertheless, the great 

 mass of the literature we esteem is valued, not merely 

 because of having artistic form, but because of its in- 

 tellectual content; and the value is the higher the more 

 precise, distinct, and true is that intellectual content. 

 And, if you will let me for a moment speak of the very 

 highest forms of literature, do we not regard them as 

 highest simply because the more we know the truer they 

 seem, and the more competent we are to appreciate 

 beauty the more beautiful they are? No man ever under- 

 stands Shakespeare until he is old, though the youngest 

 may admire him, the reason being that he satisfies the 

 artistic instinct of the youngest and harmonizes with 

 the ripest and richest experience of the oldest. 



I have said this much to draw your attention to what, 

 in my mind, lies at the root of all this matter, and at 

 the understanding of one another by the men of science 

 on the one hand, and the men of literature, and history, 

 and art, on the other. It is not a question whether one 

 order of study or another should predominate. It is a 

 question of what topics of education you shall select 

 which will combine all the needful elements in such due 

 proportion as to give the greatest amount of food, sup- 

 port, and encouragement to those faculties which enable 



