Miscellaneous, 



188 



[February, 1910. 



avoid. Ought such men, working with 

 such objects, to find a place in the 

 Imperial College ? 



It is a curious thing, but it has only 

 comparatively recently been realised, 

 that a sound and exact knowledge of 

 phenomena was necessary for man. 

 The realisation of this fact, in the 

 modern world at any rate, occurred 

 at the end of the Middle Ages. It was 

 one of the intellectual products of 

 the Renaissance, and in this country 

 Francis Bacon was its first exponent. 

 In his " Advancement of Learning " he 

 explained the methods by which the 

 increase of knowledge was possible, and 

 advocated the promotion of knowledge 

 to a new and influential position in 

 the organisation of human society. In 

 Italy the same idea was taught by the 

 great philosopher Giordano Bruno, who 

 held that the whole universe was a 

 vast mechanism of which man, and the 

 earth on which man dwells, was a 

 portion, and that the working of this 

 mechanism, though not the full compre- 

 hension of it, was open to the investi- 

 gation of man. For promulgating 

 this impious view both he and his book 

 were burnt at Rome in 1600. You will 

 find the same idea cropping up conti- 

 nually in the written records of that 

 time ; Corpernicus gave it practical re- 

 cognition when he demonstrated the 

 real relation of the sun, and it was 

 thoroughly grasped by our own Shakes- 

 peare, who gave it expression in the 

 dialogue between Perdita and Polixines 



in the Winter's Tale :— 



Perdita— 



The fairest flowers of the season 

 Are our carnations and streaked gillyvors, 

 Which some call Nature's bastard : of that 

 kind 



Our rustic garden's barren ; and 1 care not 

 To get slips of them. 

 Polixines — 



Wherefore, gentle maiden, do you neglect 

 them? 

 Perdita — 



For I have heard it said 

 There is an art which, in their piedness, 

 shares 



With great creating nature. 

 Polixines— 



Say there be ; 

 Yet nature is made better by no mean, 

 But nature makes that mean : so, o'er that 

 art 



Which you say adds to nature, is an art 

 That nature makes. ¥ou see, sweet maid, 

 we marry 



A gentle scion to the wildest stock and 

 make conceive a bark of baser kind 



By bud of nobler race : this is an art 



Which does mend nature, — change it ra- 

 ther ; but 



The art itself is nature. 



It is not difficult for us, though it may 

 be difficult to our descendants, to under- 

 stand how hard it was for man to at- 

 tune himself to the new, this mighty 

 conception, and the intellectual history 

 of the last three hundred years is a 

 record of the struggles to make it pre- 

 vail. 



Trained through long ages to believe 

 that the heavens were the abode of 

 the gods, who constantly interfered in 

 the daily affars of life and in the small- 

 est operation of nature, it seemed to 

 men impious to maintain that the earth 

 was in the heavens, and to peer into 

 the mysteries which surrounded them, 

 and the endeavour to do so has been 

 stoutly resisted ; but the conflict, in so 

 far as it has been a conflict with pre- 

 judice, is now over. It vanished in the 

 triumph of the modern views on the 

 origin of man which will be for ever 

 associated with the names of Lamarck, 

 Spencer, and Darwin. 



The triumph of these views does not 

 mean that they are correct, or that we 

 know anything more about the great 

 mystery of life than we did before. He 

 would be a bold and a prejudiced man 

 who made that assertion. What it 

 means is this, that man is grown up, 

 that he has cast off the intellectual 

 tutelage under which he has hitherto 

 existed, that he has attained complete 

 intellectual freedom, and that all things 

 in heaven and earth are legitimate sub- 

 jects of investigation. But it means 

 even more than this ; it means that the 

 conviction is rapidly growing upon him 

 that the only way in which he can hope 

 to improve his condition is by under- 

 standing the laws, physical as well as 

 spiritual, under which he exists, and 

 this he is determined to try to do by the 

 only method open to him — that of 

 minute and arduous research. 



And is it, I ask, an unworthy ambition 

 for man to set before himself to under- 

 stand those eternal laws upon which 

 his happiness, his prosperity, his very 

 existence depend ? Is he to be blamed 

 and anathematised for endeavouring to 

 fulfil the divine injunction, Fear God 

 and keep His Commandments, for that 

 is the whole duty of man ? Before he 

 can keep them, surely he must first 

 ascertain what they are I 



We hear a great deal nowadays about 

 the humanities and the humane studies 

 — the study of " ancient elegance and 

 historic wisdom " — and I should be the 

 last to minimise in any degree the value 

 and intense interest which is attached 

 to the study of the writings and 

 utterances of the mighty dead. They 

 will always retain undimmed their 



