contend with a like prejudice in the minds of his countrymen against speculative studies, will, therefore, occasion no surprise. At a still later period the wide extension of monastic institutions, into which so many assuming the garb of religion, withdrew from the cares and business of the world, revived, under a somewhat different form, the ancient controversy between the active and the contemplative life; and added greatly to its interest and importance. And lastly, descending to our own age and time, we find that the advocates of gymnastics against music among the Greeks; the enemies of philosophy at Rome; the champions during the middle ages of the active against the contemplative life, are represented amongst us by a class of reformers actuated by a spirit of hostility to letters, and a jealous preference of studies, which have, as they allege, a closer relation to the business of life, and yield more plentiful and immediate fruits. It is under the banners of science, therefore, that they wage their war on letters; and this constitutes an obvious distinction between them and those who anciently attacked the province of the Muses. With these ancients the cry was-Cease from your idle, your unprofitable pursuits, and learn to defend your country in battle, to administer its affairs in time of peace, or to support it by the

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labors of the field. And this appeal was addressed alike to the votaries of science and of letters; for the poet and the sage were terms convertible, and poetry and science then walked hand in hand. But now some of the most dangerous enemies of letters are to be found among those who profess themselves the friends of science; who think literature at the utmost a mere embellishment of social life; are willing to tolerate it, as a harmless relaxation from serious pursuits; but will not allow it to interfere with, much less to supersede studies, which have, as they pretend, a more intimate connexion with the real business of mankind. These persons, therefore, holding science in just esteem, erroneously seek to advance its interests by reforming our systems of education in such manner as to exclude, or at the least degrade studies which exercise a most forcible though secret influence over the moral and intellectual character of man; developing and training the powers of his mind, and preparing it by cultivation to yield a somewhat later, perhaps, but a far better, and more abundant harvest.

For this advantage gained by science over letters; for the preference now so evidently accorded

1 See the fragments of Euripides' Antiope, in which Zethus and Amphion appear as champions of their respective modes of life; the active and the contemplative.

to scientific when compared with literary studies, obvious reasons may be assigned. Physical science depending, as it does, for its perfection on time and experience, has been making continual advances; while moral science, and the arts related to it, have been comparatively stationary. Poetry and eloquence were carried by the ancient Greeks to a height of excellence, which it was not left for the moderns to transcend; but the progress of natural science has, of course, borne some proportion to the accumulation of facts; and especially since the attention of philosophers has been turned from vain hypotheses to careful observation of, and cautious reasoning upon, the phænomena of the material world.

The wonderful advances made by science, therefore, during the last half century; the unnumbered useful applications of it to the arts and purposes of life; and the consequent improvement in the condition of society, have, as was very natural, engaged the notice, and excited the admiration of mankind. The man of science, then, who used to be thought equally with the man of letters, a mere sluggard,

Immunisque sedens aliena ad pabula fucus,"

has now redeemed himself from a reproach, to which those whose pursuits are altogether literary still remain exposed.

That some amongst you are aware of the existence of such prejudices I am well convinced. Others, perhaps, may think I am contending against a phantom of my own creation-I would it were so-but am compelled to hear the value of studies, to which I am devoted by my profession, daily called in question-to listen to objections urged against systems of education, which ages of experience have approved-objections, which if they merit notice elsewhere, as in England, for example, whence chiefly they originate, are most unfounded here; where so little attention is even now given to the ancient classics, that much to lessen it, would be to banish them altogether from our seats of learning.

As things now stand we may, in fact, be said to retain amongst us a slight acquaintance with the languages rather than with the writers of Greece and Rome. No-it is not without reason, that the friends of letters take alarm, when they see their very citadel assailed; when they hear it seriously maintained in popular harangues, that Greece owes her celebrity, neither to poetry, nor philosophy, nor to eloquence, nor to arms; but to science only, and the mechanic arts. '

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1 It was so asserted in a public discourse pronounced before the Society of Mechanics, about the time at which this Lecture was first read.

Let the real friends of science beware how they second the inconsiderate zeal of such blind partisans, or do aught to hasten a catastrophe, which would involve, sooner or later, the very object of their care. For "the fate of science," it has been well observed, "is inseparable from that of letters; which as they gave it birth, so do they continue to afford it nourishment." A fact to the truth of which Sir Humphrey Davy also has borne testimony, saying, that, "Till the revival of literature in Europe there was no attempt at philosophical investigation in any of the sciences; the diffusion of letters gradually brought the opinions of men to the standard of nature and of truth."

I am asserting, then, the common cause of science and of letters, when I come forward in defence of that literature against which, chiefly, are directed the attacks to be repelled. For science it has nothing to apprehend, unless from the diminished attention paid to letters, and their consequent gradual decline. There is little need to point out its uses; and exhort to the cultivation of what recommends itself to notice in such an infinite variety of shapes. Love of ease, love of pleasure, love of gain, all conciliate esteem for that, which by the aid it affords to the mechanic arts, and in other ways, contributes so essentially to the comfort and conveniency of life.