Page:Essays and Addresses.djvu/633

 large subject rich in problems which excite curiosity but do not admit of any certain solution. "Probability," as Bishop Butler says, "is the very guide of life"; and for probable reasoning, as distinguished from demonstrative, it would be hard to find a more varied field than is afforded by the classics.

Nearly three centuries ago Bacon spoke of those who "call upon men to sell their books and buy furnaces, forsaking Minerva and the Muses as barren virgins, and relying upon Vulcan." He further expresses his opinion that the progress of knowledge has been retarded by a tendency to neglect the general training of the mind—"philosophy and universality," as he terms it—in favour of professional studies. It is no new thing, the question how far, and how best, we can combine education, the bringing out of the faculties, with instruction, the imparting of valuable knowledge. Modern life, so complex, so restless, and so competitive, naturally tends to insist first upon instruction; but, as no progress of science can enable men to think faster, a sound economy of educational time depends on the same principles as ever. Classical studies serve to inform the mind, in the proper sense of that word; they serve to mould and to train it: but they also instruct; and the uses of the knowledge which they can give are manifold. They cannot, indeed, create the literary faculty, though they seldom fail to improve it where it exists; nor can they humanise characters that resist their charm, though, where that power finds entrance, they vindicate their