244 JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
in her purity.”? And then also, in that wonderful compound of 
poetry and allegory and philosophy, the Phedrus, it is well known 
how he depicts the enthusiasm of the truth-loving soul. 
Nor does the appearance of the inferior class of Sophists, with 
their endless trifling and logical riddles, at all impair the truth of our 
proposition, but rather substantiates it by presenting a foil, which 
sets forth in stronger relief the spirit of all the great leaders in 
philosophy. Even the teaching of Protagoras, based as it was on 
the Flux of Heraclitus, and designed to show that eternal, absolute 
truth was impossible, even this, paradox as it may seem, was pro- 
mulgated by him in the interests of truth. 
However fruitless in material results some may consider the 
astonishing energy of the Greeks to have been, none, I suppose, 
can doubt the reality of the benefit conferred on mankind by such 
a yearning after truth for its own sake. The material comforts 
and conveniences of life are a legitimate object of care and fore- 
thought to prudent men; but it is a degradation of science and a 
species of intellectual bondage when the prime motive of research 
and effort to know the order of the universe is to amass wealth and 
to live in luxury. The example of the Greeks is a boon to any 
people in danger of being governed, in their highest endeavours, 
only by the principles of a sensuous utilitarianism. The love 
of science as science, the pursuit of truth purely as truth, so 
eminently characteristic of some of our own day, is Greek. It is 
not purely British, I will even say it is not Baconian.* Know- 
ledge may be power, but it is not wise to put the uses to which 
knowledge may be applied in the forefront, as the prime incentive 
to the pursuit of science. The human mind is never so healthy as 
when it seeks to know for pure love of knowing, and is eager to 
embrace truth wherever found, and whithersoever it may lead. 
Unless we are prepared to libel the whole of our countrymen, we 
must be prepared to admit that this spirit does exist in some degree 
amongst us, It may be questioned whether it is as prevalent as 
the interests of science and philosophy demand. But every one 
must see that a familiar acquaintance with the nature and scope of 
Greek Thought cannot fail to conduce to its cultivation; and as 
those in whom it is most conspicuous are, directly or indirectly, 
inheritors of Greek ideas, it is a fair presumption that the truth- 
* T refer to Bacon’s words, ‘‘ Knowledge is power ;”’ ¢.e. get knowledge 
for what it will bring you. 
