these men, you would find that this demon dance had been invented by some one of them with a great imagin ative power, and was performed by them not at all in preference of evil, but to meet the demand of a public whose admiration was capable of being excited only by violence of gesture, and vice of emotion.

18. In all cases, therefore, observe, where the oppor tunity of learning has been given; the existence of the art-power indicates sophia, and its absence indicates moria. That great fact I endeavoured to express to you, two years since, in my third introductory Lecture. In the present course I have to show you the action of the final, or higher sophia which directs the skill of art to the best purposes; and of the final, or lower moria which misdirects them to the worst. And the two points I shall endeavour to bring before you throughout will be these:-First, that the object of University teaching is to form your conceptions;-not to acquaint you with arts, nor sciences. It is to give you a notion of what is meant by smith's work; for instance-but not to make you blacksmiths. It is to give you a notion of what is meant by medicine, but not to make you physicians. The proper academy for blacksmiths is a blacksmith's forge; the proper academy for physicians is an hospital. Here you are to be taken away from the forge, out of the hospital, out of all special and limited labour and thought, into the Universitas' of labour and thought, that you may in peace in leisure, in calm of disinterested

contemplation be enabled to conceive rightly the laws of nature, and the destinies of Man.

19. Then the second thing I have to show you is that over these three kingdoms of imagination, art, and science, there reigns a virtue or faculty, which from all time, and by all great people, has been recognized as the appointed ruler and guide of every method of labour, or passion of soul; and the most glorious recompense of the toil, and crown of the ambition of man. "She is more precious than rubies, and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her. Lay fast hold upon her; let her not go; keep her, for she is thy life."

Are not these, and the innumerable words like to these, which you remember as I read them, strange words if Aristotle's statement respecting wisdom be true; that it never contemplates anything that can make en happy, “ ἡ μὲν γὰρ σοφία οὐδέν θεωρεῖ ἐξ ὧν ἔσται εὐδαίμων ἄνθρωπος.”

When we next meet, therefore, I purpose to examine what it is which wisdom, by preference, contemplates; what choice she makes among the thoughts and sciences open to her, and to what purpose she employs whatever science she may possess.

And I will briefly tell you, beforehand, that the result of the inquiry will be, that instead of regarding none of the sources of happiness, she regards nothing else; that she measures all worthiness by pure felicity; that we are permitted to conceive her as the cause even of gladness to

God-"I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him," and that we are commanded to know her as queen of the populous world, " rejoicing in the hal itable parts of the Earth, and whose delights are with the sons of Men."

LECTURE II.

OF WISDOM AND FOLLY IN SCIENCE.

10th February, 1872

20. IN iny last lecture I asserted the positive and negative powers of literature, art, and science; and endeavoured to show you some of the relations of wise art to foolish art. To-day we are to examine the nature of these positive and negative powers in science; it being the object of every true school to teach the positive or constructive power, and by all means to discourage, reprove, and extinguish the negative power.

It is very possible that you may not often have thought of, or clearly defined to yourselves, this destructive or deadly character of some elements of science. You may indeed have recognized with Pope that a little knowledge was dangerous, and you have therefore striven to drink deep; you may have recognized with Bacon, that knowledge might partially become venomous; and you may have sought, in modesty and sincerity, antidote to the inflating poison. But that there is a ruling spirit or oopla, under whose authority you are placed, to determine for you, first the choice, and then the use of all knowledge

whatsoever; and that if you do not appeal to that ruler, much more if you disobey her, all science becomes to you ruinous in proportion to its accumulation, and as a net tc your soul, fatal in proportion to the fineness of its thread, —this, I imagine, few of you, in the zeal of learning, have suspected, and fewer still have pressed their suspicion so far as to recognize or believe.

21. You must have nearly all heard of, many must have seen, the singular paintings; some also may have read the poems, of William Blake. The impression that his drawings once made is fast, and justly, fading away, though they are not without noble merit. But his poems have much more than merit; they are written with absolute sincerity, with infinite tenderness, and, though in the manner of them diseased and wild, are in verity the words of a great and wise mind, disturbed, but not deceived, by its sickness; nay, partly exalted by it, and sometimes giving forth in fiery aphorism some of the most precious words of existing literature. One of these passages I will ask you to remember; it will often be serviceable to you ·

"Doth the Eagle know what is in the pit,
Or wilt thou go ask the Mole?"

it would be impossible to express to you in briefer terms the great truth that there is a different kind of knowledge good for every different creature, and that the glory of the higher creatures is in ignorance of what is known to the lower.