mple,
shows things as they are, that is, the morals and interests of men
disfigured and perverted by all their imperfections of passion, folly, and
ambition; philosophy strips the picture too much; poetry adorns it too
much; the concentrated lights of the three correct the false peculiar
colouring of each, and show us the truth. The right mode of thinking upon
it is to be had from them taken all together, as every one must know who
has seen their united contributions of thought and feeling expressed in
the masculine sentiment of our immortal statesman, Mr. Burke, whose
eloquence is inferior only to his more admirable wisdom. If any mind
improved like his, is to be our instructor, we must go to the fountain
head of things as he did, and study not his works but his method; by the
one we may become feeble imitators, by the other arrive at some ability of
our own. But, as all biography assures us, he, and every other able
thinker, has been formed, not by a parsimonious admeasurement of studies
to some definite future object (which is Mr. Edgeworth's maxim), but by
taking a wide and liberal compass, and thinking a great deal on many
subjects with no better end in view than because the exercise was one
which made them more rational and intelligent beings."

10.

But I must bring these extracts to an end. To-day I have confined myself
to saying that that training of the intellect, which is best for the
individual himself, best enables him to discharge his duties to society.
The Philosopher, indeed, and the man of the world differ in their very
notion, but the methods, by which they are respectively formed, are pretty
much the same. The Philosopher has the same command of matters of thought,
which the true citizen and gentleman has of matters of business and
conduct. If then a practical end must be assigned to a University course,
I say it is that of training good members of society. Its art is the art
of social life, and its end is fitness for the world. It neither confines
its views to particular professions on the one hand, nor creates heroes or
inspires genius on the other. Works indeed of genius fall under no art;
heroic minds come under no rule; a University is not a birthplace of poets
or of immortal authors, of founders of schools, leaders of colonies, or
conquerors of nations. It does not promise a generation of Aristotles or
Newtons, of Napoleons or Washingtons, of Raphaels or Shakespeares, though
such miracles