Page:Columbia University Lectures on Literature (1911).djvu/15

 I

APPROACHES TO LITERATURE

By Brander Matthews, Professor of Dramatic Literature Two winters ago Columbia University invited its teaching staff, its students, and its friends to a series of lectures which set forth the essential quality and the existing condition of each of the several sciences, and to-day Columbia University begins another series of lectures devoted to a single one of the arts — the art of Literature. In the opening decade of this twentieth century, when the triumphs of Science are exultant on all sides of us, there would be a lack of propriety in failing to acknowledge its power and its authority; and a grosser failure would follow any attempt to set up Art as a rival over against Science. Art and Science have each of them their own field; they have each of them their own work to do; and they are not competitors but colleagues in the service of humanity, responding to different needs. Man cannot live by Science alone, since Science does not feed the soul; and it is Art which nourishes the heart of man. Science does what it can ; and Art does what it must. Science takes no thought of the individual; and individuality is the essence of Art. Science seeks to be impersonal, and it is ever struggling to cast out what it calls the personal equa- tion. Art cherishes individuality and is what it is because of the differences which distinguish one man from another; and therefore the loftiest achievements of Art are the result of the personal equation raised to its highest power.

Of all the liberal arts Literature is the oldest, as it is the most immediate in its utility and the broadest in its appeal.