Page:An Essay on the Age and Antiquity of the Book of Nabathaean Agriculture.djvu/125

Rh feel that I was doing an injury to science by an appearance of disregard to this honoured tradition. What would become of our graver studies, if they had not an inviolable sanctuary in the College of France? What of high cultivation of the intellect, if mere general expositions, well enough, perhaps, when delivered in the presence of a numerous audience, are to stifle instruction in a more severe form in an institution which, above all others, is destined to endure as the School of deep scientific research? I should be most culpable, if the future could charge me with having contributed to such a change. The progress of science is compromised, if we do not profit by deep thought and reflection; if any one thinks he fulfils the duties of life in holding blindly the opinions of any party on all things; if fickleness, exclusive opinions, abrupt and peremptory forms, suppress problems, instead of solving them. Oh, that the fathers of modern intellect