Such appear to me to be the broad outlines of the relations which the
university, regarded as a place of education, ought to bear to the
school, but a number of points of detail require some consideration,
however briefly and imperfectly I can deal with them. In the first
place, there is the important question of the limitations which should
be fixed to the entrance into the university; or, what qualifications
Kent Heights School East Providence Rhode Island should be required of those who propose to take advantage of the higher
training offered by the university. On the one hand, it is obviously
desirable that the time and opportunities of the university should not
be wasted in conferring such elementary instruction as can be obtained
elsewhere; while, on the other hand, it is no less desirable that the
higher instruction of the university should be made accessible to every
one who can take advantage of it, although he may not have been able to
go through any very extended course of education. My own feeling is
distinctly against any absolute and defined preliminary examination,
the passing of which shall be an essential condition of admission to
the university. I would admit to the university any one who could be
reasonably expected to profit by the instruction offered to him; and I
should be inclined, on the whole, to test the fitness of the student,
not by examination before he enters the university, but at the end of
his first term of study. If, on examination in the branches of
knowledge to which he has devoted himself, he show himself deficient in
industry or in capacity, it will be best for the university and best
for himself, to prevent him from pursuing a vocation for which he is
obviously unfit. And I hardly know of any other method than this by
which his fitness or unfitness can be safely ascertained, though no
doubt a good deal may be done, not by formal cut and dried examination,
but by judicious questioning, at the outset of his career.
Another very important and difficult practical question is, whether a
definite course of study shall be laid down for those who enter the
university; whether a curriculum shall be prescribed; or whether the
student shall be allowed to range at will among the subjects which are
open to him. And this question is inseparably connected with another,
namely, the conferring of degrees. It is obviously impossible that any
student should pass through the whole of the series of courses of
instruction offered by a university. If a degree is to be conferred as
a mark of proficiency in knowledge, it must be given on the ground that
the candidate is proficient in a certain fraction of those studies; and
then will arise the necessity of insuring an equivalency of degrees, so
that the course by which a degree is obtained shall mark approximately
an equal amount of labour and of acquirements, in all cases. But this
equivalency can hardly be secured in any other way than by prescribing
a series of definite lines of study. This is a matter which will
require grave consideration. The important points to bear in mind, I
think, are that there should not be too many subjects in the
curriculum, and that the aim should be the attainment of thorough and
sound knowledge of each.
One half of the Johns Hopkins bequest is devoted to the establishment
of a hospital, and it was the desire of the testator that the
university and the hospital should co-operate in the promotion of
medical education. The trustees will unquestionably take the best
advice that is to be had as to the construction and administration of
the hospital. In respect to the former point, they will doubtless
remember that a hospital may be so arranged as to kill more than it
cures; and, in regard to the latter, that a hospital may spread the
spirit of pauperism among the well-to-do, as well as relieve the
sufferings of the destitute. It is not for me to speak on these
topics–rather let me confine myself to the one matter on which my
experience as a student of medicine, and an examiner of long standing,
who has taken a great interest in the subject of medical education, may
entitle me to a hearing. I mean the nature of medical education itself,
and the co-operation of the university in its promotion.

But how does this classification differ from that of the
scientific Zoologist? How does the meaning of the scientific class-name
of “Mammalia” differ from the unscientific of “Beasts”?
Why, exactly because the former depends on a definition, the latter on
a type. The class Mammalia is scientifically defined as “all animals
which have a vertebrated skeleton and suckle their young.” Here is no
reference to type, but a definition rigorous enough for a geometrician.
And such is the character which every scientific naturalist recognises
as that to which his classes must aspire–knowing, as he does, that
classification by type is simply an acknowledgment of ignorance and a
temporary device.
So much in the way of negative argument as against the reputed
differences between Biological and other methods. No such differences,
I believe, really exist. The subject-matter of Biological science is
different from that of other sciences, but the methods of all are
identical; and these methods are–
1. _Observation_ of facts–including under this head that _artificial
observation_ which is called _experiment_.
2. That process of tying up similar facts into bundles, ticketed and
ready for use, which is called _Comparison_ and _Classification_,–the
results of the process, the ticketed bundles, being named _General
propositions_.
3. _Deduction_, which takes us from the general proposition to facts
again–teaches us, if I may so say, to anticipate from the ticket
what is inside the bundle. And finally–
4. _Verification_, which is the process of ascertaining whether, in
point of fact, our anticipation is a correct one.
Such are the methods of all science whatsoever; but perhaps you will
permit me to give you an illustration of their employment in the
science of Life; and I will take as a special case the establishment of
the doctrine of the _Circulation of the Blood_.
In this case, _simple observation_ yields us a knowledge of the
existence of the blood from some accidental haemorrhage, we will say;
we may even grant that it informs us of the localisation of this blood
in particular vessels, the heart, &c., from some accidental cut or the
like. It teaches also the existence of a pulse in various parts of the
body, and acquaints us with the structure of the heart and vessels.
Here, however, _simple observation_ stops, and we must have recourse
to _experiment_.
You tie a vein, and you find that the blood accumulates on the side of
the ligature opposite the heart. You tie an artery, and you find that
the blood accumulates on the side near the heart. Open the chest, and
you see the heart contracting with great force. Make openings into its
principal cavities, and you will find that all the blood flows out, and
no more pressure is exerted on either side of the arterial or venous
ligature.
Now all these facts, taken together, constitute the evidence that the
blood is propelled by the heart through the arteries, and returns by
the veins–that, in short, the blood circulates.
Suppose our experiments and observations have been made on horses, then
we group and ticket them into University Cincinnati-raymond Walters College a general proposition, thus:–_all
horses have a circulation of their blood_.
Henceforward a horse is a sort of indication or label, telling us where
we shall find a peculiar series of phaenomena called the circulation of
the blood.
Here is our _general proposition_, then.
How, and when, are we justified in making our next step–a _deduction_
from it?
Suppose our physiologist, whose experience is limited to horses, meets
with a zebra for the first time,–will he suppose that this
generalisation holds good for zebras also?
That depends very much on his turn of mind. But we will suppose him to
be a bold man. He will say, “The zebra is certainly not a horse, but it
is very like one,–so like, that it must be the ticket or mark of a
blood-circulation also; and, I conclude that the zebra has a
circulation.”
That is a deduction, a very fair deduction, but by no means to be
considered scientifically secure. This last quality in fact can only be
given by _verification_–that is, by making a zebra the subject of
all the experiments performed on the horse. Of course, in the present
case, the _deduction_ would be _confirmed_ by this process of
verification, and the result would be, not merely a positive widening
of knowledge, but a fair increase of confidence in the truth of ones
generalisations in other cases.
Thus, having settled the point in the zebra and horse, our philosopher
would have great confidence in the existence of a circulation in the
ass. Nay, I fancy most persons would excuse him, if in this case he did
not take the trouble to go through the process of verification at all;
and it would not be without a parallel in the history of the human
mind, if our imaginary physiologist now maintained that he was
acquainted with asinine circulation _à priori_.

Hume or Hartley, though he refers to neither.
[15] _Essay on the First Principles of Government_, Second edition,
1771.
[16] “Utility of Establishments,” in _Essay on First Principles of
Government_, 1771.
[17] In 1732 Doddridge was cited for teaching without the Bishops
leave, at Northampton.
II
ON THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES
[1854]
The subject to which I have to beg your attention during the ensuing
hour is “The Relation of Physiological Science to other branches of
Knowledge.”
Had circumstances permitted of the delivery, in their strict logical
order, of that series of discourses of which the present lecture is a
member, I should have preceded my friend and colleague Mr. Henfrey, who
addressed you on Monday last; but while, for the sake of that order, I
must beg you to suppose that this discussion of the Educational
bearings of Biology in general _does_ precede that of Special
Zoology and Botany, I am rejoiced to be able to take advantage
of the light thus already thrown upon the tendency and methods of
Physiological Science.
Regarding Physiological Science, then, in its widest sense–as the
equivalent of _Biology_–the Science of Individual Life–we have to
consider in succession:
1. Its position and scope as a branch of knowledge.
2. Its value as a means of mental discipline.
3. Its worth as practical information.
And lastly,
4. At what period it may best be made a branch of Education.
Our conclusions on the first Costal Harbor Transifion Cente In Savannah, Georgia of these heads must depend, of course,
upon the nature of the subject-matter of Biology; and I think a few
preliminary considerations will place before you in a clear light the
vast difference which exists between the living bodies with which
Physiological science is concerned, and the remainder of the
universe;–between the phaenomena of Number and Space, of Physical and
of Chemical force, on the one hand, and those of Life on the other.
The mathematician, the physicist, and the chemist contemplate things in
a condition of rest; they look upon a state of equilibrium as that to
which all bodies normally tend.
The mathematician does not suppose that a quantity will alter, or that
a given point in space will change its direction with regard to another
point, spontaneously. And it is the same with the physicist. When
Newton saw the apple fall, he concluded at once that the act of falling
was not the result of any power inherent in the apple, but that it was
the result of the action of something else on the apple. In a similar
manner, all physical force is regarded as the disturbance of an
equilibrium to which things tended before its exertion,–to which they
will tend again after its cessation.
The chemist equally regards chemical change in a body as the effect of
the action of something external to the body changed. A chemical
compound once formed would persist for ever, if no alteration took
place in surrounding conditions.

Well, but, you will say, this is Hamlet with the Prince of Denmark left
out; San Joaquin Valley College-rancho Cucamonga your “technical education” is simply a good education, with more
attention to physical science, to drawing, and to modern languages than
is common, and there is nothing specially technical about it.
Exactly so; that remark takes us straight to the heart of what I have
to say; which is, that, in my judgment, the preparatory education of
the handicraftsman ought to have nothing of what is ordinarily
understood by “technical” about it.
The workshop is the only real school for a handicraft. The education
which precedes that of the workshop should be entirely devoted to the
strengthening of the body, the elevation of the moral faculties, and
the cultivation of the intelligence; and, especially, to the imbuing
the mind with a broad and clear view of the laws of that natural world
with the components of which the handicraftsman will have to deal. And,
the earlier the period of life at which the handicraftsman has to enter
into actual practice of his craft, the more important is it that he
should devote the precious hours of preliminary education to things of
the mind, which have no direct and immediate bearing on his branch of
industry, though they lie at the foundation of all realities.
* * * * *
Now let me apply the lessons I have learned from my handicraft to
yours. If any of you were obliged to take an apprentice, I suppose you
would like to get a good healthy lad, ready and willing to learn,
handy, and with his fingers not all thumbs, as the saying goes. You
would like that he should read, write, and cipher well; and, if you
were an intelligent master, and your trade involved the application of
scientific principles, as so many trades do, you would like him to know
enough of the elementary principles of science to understand what was
going on. I suppose that, in nine trades out of ten, it would be useful
if he could draw; and many of you must have lamented your inability to
find out for yourselves what foreigners are doing or have done. So that
some knowledge of French and German might, in many cases, be very
desirable.

What wonder, then, if very recently an appeal has been made to
statistics for the profoundly foolish purpose of showing that education
is of no good–that it diminishes neither misery nor crime among the
masses of mankind? I reply, why should the thing which has been called
education do either the one or the other? If I am a knave or a fool,
teaching me to read and write wont make me less of either one or the
other–unless somebody shows me how to put my reading and writing to
wise and good purposes.
Suppose any one were to argue that medicine is of no use, because it
could be proved statistically, that the percentage of deaths was just
the same among people who had been taught how to open a medicine chest,
and among those who did not so much as know the key by sight. The
argument is absurd; but it is not more preposterous than that against
which I am contending. The only medicine for suffering, crime, and all
the other woes of mankind, is wisdom. Teach a man to read and write,
and you have put into his hands the great keys of the wisdom box. But
it is quite another matter whether he ever opens Bradford Jr High School In Bradford, Illinois the box or not. And he
is as likely to poison as to cure himself, if, without guidance, he
swallows the first drug that comes to hand. In these times a man may as
well be purblind, as unable to read–lame, as unable to write. But I
protest that, if I thought the alternative were a necessary one, I
would rather that the children of the poor should grow up ignorant of
both these mighty arts, than that they should remain ignorant of that
knowledge to which these arts are means.
* * * * *

The acute founder of general anatomy, in fact, outdoes Hunter in his
desire to exclude physical reasonings from the realm of life. Except in
the interpretation of the action of the sense organs, he will not allow
physics to have anything to do with physiology.
“To apply the physical sciences to physiology is to explain the
phenomena of living bodies by the laws of inert bodies. Now this is a
false principle, hence all its consequences are marked with the same
stamp. Let us leave to chemistry its affinity; to physics, its
elasticity and its gravity. Let us invoke for physiology only
sensibility and contractility.” [5]
Of all the unfortunate dicta of men of eminent ability this seems one
of the most unhappy, when we think of what the application of the
methods and the data of physics and chemistry has done towards bringing
physiology into its present state. It is not too much to say that
one-half of a modern text-book of physiology consists of applied
physics and chemistry; and that it is exactly in the exploration of the
phenomena of sensibility and contractility that physics and chemistry
have exerted the most potent influence.
Nevertheless, Bichat rendered a solid service to physiological progress
by insisting upon the fact that what we call life, in one of the higher
animals, is not an indivisible unitary archaeus dominating, from its
central seat, the parts of the organism, but a compound result of the
synthesis of the separate lives of those parts.
“All animals,” says he, “are assemblages of different organs, each of
which performs its function and concurs, after its fashion, in the
preservation of the whole. They are so many special machines in the
general machine which constitutes the individual. But each of these
special machines is itself compounded of many tissues of very different
natures, which in truth constitute the elements of those organs”
(_l.c._ lxxix.). “The conception of a proper vitality is applicable
only to these simple tissues, and not to the organs themselves”
(_l.c._ lxxxiv.).
And Bichat proceeds to make the obvious application of this doctrine of
synthetic life, if I may so call it, to pathology. Since diseases are
only alterations of vital properties, and the properties of each tissue
are distinct from those of the rest, it is evident that the diseases of
each tissue must be different from those of the rest. Therefore, in any
organ composed of different tissues, one may be diseased and the other
remain healthy; and this is what happens in most cases (_l.c._ lxxxv.).
In a spirit of true prophecy, Bichat says, “We have arrived at an epoch
in which pathological anatomy should start afresh.” For, as the
analysis of the organs had led him to the tissues as the physiological
units of the organism; so, in a succeeding generation, the analysis of
the tissues led to the cell as the physiological element of the
tissues. The contemporaneous study of development brought out the same
result; and the zoologists and botanists, exploring the simplest and
the lowest forms of animated beings, confirmed the great induction of
the cell theory. Thus the apparently opposed views, which have been
battling with one another ever since the middle of the last century,
have proved to be each half the truth.
The proposition of Descartes that the body of a living man is a
machine, the actions of which are explicable by the known laws of
matter and motion, is unquestionably largely true. But it is also true,
that the living body is a synthesis of innumerable physiological
elements, each of which may nearly be described, in Wolffs words, as a
fluid possessed of a “vis Community Christian Academy Morrow Georgia essentialis” and a “solidescibilitas”; or, in
modern phrase, as protoplasm susceptible of structural metamorphosis
and functional metabolism: and that the only machinery, in the precise
sense in which the Cartesian school understood mechanism, is, that
which co-ordinates and regulates these physiological units into an
organic whole.

The man of science, in fact, simply uses with scrupulous exactness the
methods which we all, habitually and at every moment, use carelessly;
and the man of business must as much avail himself of the scientific
method–must be as truly a man of science–as the veriest bookworm of
us all; though I have no doubt that the man of business will find
himself out to be a philosopher with as much surprise as M. Jourdain
exhibited vhen he discovered that he had been all his life talking
prose. If, however, there be no real difference between the methods of
science and those of common life, it would seem, on the face of the
matter, highly improbable that there should be any difference between
the methods of the different sciences; nevertheless, it is constantly
taken for granted that there is a Solomon Schecter Day Middle Sc In New Milford, New Jersey very wide difference between the
Physiological and other sciences in point of method.
In the first place it is said–and I take this point first, because the
imputation is too frequently admitted by Physiologists themselves–that
Biology differs from the Physico-chemical and Mathematical sciences in
being “inexact.”
Now, this phrase “inexact” must refer either to the _methods_ or to
the _results_ of Physiological science.
It cannot be correct to apply it to the methods; for, as I hope to show
you by and by, these are identical in all sciences, and whatever is
true of Physiological method is true of Physical and Mathematical
method.
Is it then the _results_ of Biological science which are “inexact”?
I think not. If I say that respiration is performed by the
lungs; that digestion is effected in the stomach; that the eye is the
organ of sight; that the jaws of a vertebrated animal never open
sideways, but always up and down; while those of an annulose animal
always open sideways, and never up and down–I am enumerating
propositions which are as exact as anything in Euclid. How then has
this notion of the inexactness of Biological science come about? I
believe from two causes: first, because in consequence of the great
complexity of the science and the multitude of interfering conditions,
we are very often only enabled to predict approximately what will occur
under given circumstances; and secondly, because, on account of the
comparative youth of the Physiological sciences, a great many of their
laws are still imperfectly worked out. But, in an educational point of
view, it is most important to distinguish between the essence of a
science and the accidents which surround it; and essentially, the
methods and results of Physiology are as exact as those of Physics or
Mathematics.
It is said that the Physiological method is especially _comparative_;
[1] and this dictum also finds favour in the eyes of many.
I should be sorry to suggest that the speculators on scientific
classification have been misled by the accident of the name of one
leading branch of Biology–_Comparative Anatomy_; but I would ask
whether _comparison_, and that classification which is the result of
comparison, are not the essence of every science whatsoever? How is it
possible to discover a relation of cause and effect of _any_ kind
without comparing a series of cases together in which the supposed
cause and effect occur singly, or combined? So far from comparison
being in any way peculiar to Biological science, it is, I think, the
essence of every science.
A speculative philosopher again tells us that the Biological
sciences are distinguished by being sciences of observation and not
of experiment! [2] Of all the strange assertions into which speculation
without practical acquaintance with a subject may lead even an able
man, I think this is the very strangest. Physiology not an experimental
science? Why, there is not a function of a single organ in the body
which has not been determined wholly and solely by experiment? How did
Harvey determine the nature of the circulation, except by experiment?
How did Sir Charles Bell determine the functions of the roots of the
spinal nerves, save by experiment? How do we know the use of a nerve at
all, except by experiment? Nay, how do you know even that your eye is
your seeing apparatus, unless you make the experiment of shutting it;
or that your ear is your hearing apparatus, unless you close it up and
thereby discover that you become deaf?

Thus, if a lad in an elementary school showed signs of special
capacity, I would try to provide him with the means of continuing his
education after his daily working life had begun; if in the evening
classes he developed special capabilities in the direction of science
or of drawing, I would try to secure him an apprenticeship to some
trade in which those powers would have applicability. Or, if he chose
to become a teacher, he should have the chance of so doing. Finally, to
the lad of genius, the one in a million, I would make accessible the
highest and most complete training the country could afford. Whatever
that might cost, depend upon it the investment would be a good one. I
weigh my words when I say that if the nation could purchase a potential
Watt, or Davy, or Faraday, at the cost of a hundred thousand pounds
down, he would be dirt-cheap at the money. It is a mere commonplace and
everyday Cornerstone Acad-kgdn Annex San Francisco California piece of knowledge, that what these three men did has produced
untold millions of wealth, in the narrowest economical sense of the
word.
Therefore, as the sum and crown of what is to be done for technical
education, I look to the provision of a machinery for winnowing out the
capacities and giving them scope. When I was a member of the London
School Board, I said, in the course of a speech, that our business was
to provide a ladder, reaching from the gutter to the university, along
which every child in the three kingdoms should have the chance of
climbing as far as he was fit to go. This phrase was so much bandied
about at the time, that, to say truth, I am rather tired of it; but I
know of no other which so fully expresses my belief, not only about
education in general, but about technical education in particular.
The essential foundation of all the organisation needed for the
promotion of education among handicraftsmen will, I believe, exist in
this country, when every working lad can feel that society has done as
much as lies in its power to remove all needless and artificial
obstacles from his path; that there is no barrier, except such as
exists in the nature of things, between himself and whatever place in
the social organisation he is fitted to fill; and, more than this,
that, if he has capacity and industry, a hand is held out to help him
along any path which is wisely and honestly chosen.
I have endeavoured to point out to you that a great deal of such an
organisation already exists; and I am glad to be able to add that there
is a good prospect that what is wanting will, before long, be
supplemented.
Those powerful and wealthy societies, the livery companies of the City
of London, remembering that they are the heirs and representatives of
the trade guilds of the Middle Ages, are interesting themselves in the
question. So far back as 1872 the Society of Arts organised a system of
instruction in the technology of arts and manufactures, for persons
actually employed in factories and workshops, who desired to extend and
improve their knowledge of the theory and practice of their particular
avocations; [1] and a considerable subsidy, in aid of the efforts of
the Society, was liberally granted by the Clothworkers Company. We
have here the hopeful commencement of a rational organisation for the
promotion of excellence among handicraftsmen. Quite recently, other of
the livery companies have determined upon giving their powerful, and,
indeed, almost boundless, aid to the improvement of the teaching of
handicrafts. They have already gone so far as to appoint a committee to
act for them; and I betray no confidence in adding that, some time
since, the committee sought the advice and assistance of several
persons, myself among the number.
Of course I cannot tell you what may be the result of the deliberations
of the committee; but we may all fairly hope that, before long, steps
which will have a weighty and a lasting influence on the growth and
spread of sound and thorough teaching among the handicraftsmen [2] of
this country will be taken by the livery companies of London.
[This hope has been fully justified by the establishment of the Cowper
Street Schools, and that of the Central Institution of the City and
Guilds of London Institute, September, 1881.]
* * * * *

Indeed, things are moving so fast in Oxford and Cambridge, that, for my
part, I rejoiced when the Royal Commission, of which I am a member, had
finished and presented the Report which related to these Universities;
for we should have looked like mere plagiarists, if, in consequence of
a little longer delay in issuing it, all the measures of reform we
proposed had been anticipated by the spontaneous action of the
Universities themselves.
A month ago I should have gone on to say that one might speedily expect
changes of another kind in Oxford and Cambridge. A Commission has been
inquiring into the revenues of the many wealthy societies, in more or
less direct connection with the Universities, resident in those towns.
It is said that the Commission has reported, and that, for the first
time in recorded history, the nation, and perhaps the Colleges
themselves, will know what they are worth. And it was announced that a
statesman, who, whatever his other merits or defects, has aims above
the level of mere party fighting, and a clear vision into the most
complex practical problems, meant to deal with these revenues.
But, _Bos locutus est_. That mysterious independent variable of
political calculation, Public Opinion–which some whisper is, in the
present case, very much the same thing as publicans opinion–has
willed otherwise. The Heads may return to their wonted slumbers–at any
rate for a space.
Is the spirit of change, which is working thus vigorously in the South,
Dunbar Elementary School Memphis Tennessee likely to affect the Northern Universities, and if so, to what extent?
The violence of fermentation depends, not so much on the quantity of
the yeast, as on the composition of the wort, and its richness in
fermentable material; and, as a preliminary to the discussion of this
question, I venture to call to your minds the essential and fundamental
differences between the Scottish and the English type of University.
Do not charge me with anything worse than official egotism, if I say
that these differences appear to be largely symbolised by my own
existence. There is no Rector in an English University. Now, the
organisation of the members of a University into Nations, with their
elective Rector, is the last relic of the primitive constitution of
Universities. The Rectorate was the most important of all offices in
that University of Paris, upon the model of which the University of
Aberdeen was fashioned; and which was certainly a great and flourishing
institution in the twelfth century.
Enthusiasts for the antiquity of one of the two acknowledged parents of
all Universities, indeed, do not hesitate to trace the origin of the
“Studium Parisiense” up to that wonderful king of the Franks and
Lombards, Karl, surnamed the Great, whom we all called Charlemagne, and
believed to be a Frenchman, until a learned historian, by beneficent
iteration, taught us better. Karl is said not to have been much of a
scholar himself, but he had the wisdom of which knowledge is only the
servitor. And that wisdom enabled him to see that ignorance is one of
the roots of all evil.
In the Capitulary which enjoins the foundation of monasterial and
cathedral schools, he says: “Right action is better than knowledge; but
in order to do what is right, we must know what is right.” [1] An
irrefragable truth, I fancy. Acting upon it, the king took pretty full
compulsory powers, and carried into effect a really considerable and
effectual scheme of elementary education through the length and breadth
of his dominions.

Now, it is a very remarkable fact–but it is true of most things in
this world–that there is hardly anything one-sided, or of one nature;
and it is not Louisiana Technical College-folkes Campus immediately obvious what of the things that interest us
may be regarded as pure science, and what may be regarded as pure art.
It may be that there are some peculiarly constituted persons who,
before they have advanced far into the depths of geometry, find
artistic beauty about it; but, taking the generality of mankind, I
think it may be said that, when they begin to learn mathematics, their
whole souls are absorbed in tracing the connection between the
premisses and the conclusion, and that to them geometry is pure
science. So I think it may be said that mechanics and osteology are
pure science. On the other hand, melody in music is pure art. You
cannot reason about it; there is no proposition involved in it. So,
again, in the pictorial art, an arabesque, or a “harmony in grey,”
touches none but the aesthetic faculty. But a great mathematician, and
even many persons who are not great mathematicians, will tell you that
they derive immense pleasure from geometrical reasonings. Everybody
knows mathematicians speak of solutions and problems as “elegant,” and
they tell you that a certain mass of mystic symbols is “beautiful,
quite lovely.” Well, you do not see it. They do see it, because the
intellectual process, the process of comprehending the reasons
symbolised by these figures and these signs, confers upon them a sort
of pleasure, such as an artist has in visual symmetry. Take a science
of which I may speak with more confidence, and which is the most
attractive of those I am concerned with. It is what we call morphology,
which consists in tracing out the unity in variety of the infinitely
diversified structures of animals and plants. I cannot give you any
example of a thorough aesthetic pleasure more intensely real than a
pleasure of this kind–the pleasure which arises in ones mind when a
whole mass of different structures run into one harmony as the
expression of a central law. That is where the province of art overlays
and embraces the province of intellect. And, if I may venture to
express an opinion on such a subject, the great majority of forms of
art are not in the sense what I just now defined them to be–pure art;
but they derive much of their quality from simultaneous and even
unconscious excitement of the intellect.
When I was a boy, I was very fond of music, and I am so now; and it so
happened that I had the opportunity of hearing much good music. Among
other things, I had abundant opportunities of hearing that great old
master, Sebastian Bach. I remember perfectly well–though I knew
nothing about music then, and, I may add, know nothing whatever about
it now–the intense satisfaction and delight which I had in listening,
by the hour together, to Bachs fugues. It is a pleasure which remains
with me, I am glad to think; but, of late years, I have tried to find
out the why and wherefore, and it has often occurred to me that the
pleasure derived from musical compositions of this kind is essentially
of the same nature as that which is derived from pursuits which are
commonly regarded as purely intellectual. I mean, that the source
of pleasure is exactly the same as in most of my problems in
morphology–that you have the theme in one of the old masters works
followed out in all its endless variations, always appearing and always
reminding you of unity in variety. So in painting; what is called
“truth to nature” is the intellectual element coming in, and truth to
nature depends entirely upon the intellectual culture of the person to
whom art is addressed. If you are in Australia, you may get credit for
being a good artist–I mean among the natives–if you can draw a
kangaroo after a fashion. But, among men of higher civilisation, the
intellectual knowledge we possess brings its criticism into 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 information of those whom art addresses, the
more exact and precise must be what we call its “truth to nature.”