to be looked for, not so much in the encouragement it gave to science
and learning, in respect of which Western Europe probably owes more to
Mahometanism, as in the high and generous types of character which it
inspired. A man of rare moral depth, warmth, or delicacy, may be a more
important element in the advance of civilisation, than the newest and
truest deduction from what Turgot calls 'the fundamental principles of
the science of morals.' The leading of souls to do what is right and
humane, is always more urgent than mere instruction of the intelligence
as to what exactly is the right and the humane. The saint after all has
a place in positive history; but the men of the eighteenth century
passionately threw him out from their calendar, as the mere wooden idol
of superstition. They eagerly recognised the genius of scientific
discovery; but they had no eyes for the genius of moral holiness.
Turgot, far as he was from many of the narrownesses of his time, yet did
not entirely transcend this, the worst of them all. And because he could
not perceive there to be any new growths in moral science, he left out
from a front place among the forces that have given strength and
ripeness to the human mind, the superior capacity of some men for
kindling, by word and example, the glowing love and devout practice of
morality in the breasts of many generations of their fellows.

The mechanical arts, Turgot says, were preserved in the dark ages by the
necessities of existence, and because 'it is impossible but that out of
the crowd of artisans practising them, there should arise from time to
time one of those men of genius who are found mingled with other men, as
gold is found mingled with the earth of a mine.' Surely in the same way
holy men arose, with keener feeling for the spiritual necessities of the
time, and finer knowledge to train and fit the capacities of human
nature to meet these needs, and make their satisfaction the basis for
yet loftier standards and holier aspirations and nobler and more careful
practice. The work of all such men deserved a place in an outline of the
progressive forces of the human mind, as much as the work of those who
invented bills of exchange, the art of musical notation, windmills,
clocks, gunpowder, and all the other material instruments for
multiplying the powers of man and the conveniences of life.

Even if we give Turgot the benefit of the doubt whether he intended to
describe more than the