, and impulse,
and bent of all kinds, is, in fact, nothing else but the desire in men
that good should forever be present to them. This desire for good,
Diotima assured Socrates, is our fundamental desire, of which
fundamental desire every impulse in us is only some one particular form.
And therefore this fundamental desire it is, I suppose,--this desire in
men that good should be forever present to them,--which acts in us when
we feel the impulse for relating our knowledge to our sense for conduct
and to our sense for beauty. At any rate, with men in general the
instinct exists. Such is human nature. And the instinct, it will be
admitted, is innocent, and human nature is preserved by our following
the lead of its innocent instincts. Therefore, in seeking to gratify
this instinct in question, we are following the instinct of
self-preservation in humanity.

But, no doubt, some kinds of knowledge cannot be made to directly serve
the instinct in question, cannot be directly related to the sense for
beauty, to the sense for conduct. These are instrument-knowledges; they
lead on to other knowledges, which can. A man who passes his life in
instrument-knowledges is a specialist. They may be invaluable as
instruments to something beyond, for those who have the gift thus to
employ them; and they may be disciplines in themselves wherein it is
useful for every one to have some schooling. But it is inconceivable
that the generality of men should pass all their mental life with Greek
accents or with formal logic. My friend Professor Sylvester,[127] who is
one of the first mathematicians in the world, holds transcendental
doctrines as to the virtue of mathematics, but those doctrines are not
for common men. In the very Senate House and heart of our English
Cambridge I once ventured, though not without an apology for my
profaneness, to hazard the opinion that for the majority of mankind a
little of mathematics, even, goes a long way. Of course this is quite
consistent with their being of immense importance as an instrument to
something else; but it is the few who have the aptitude for thus using
them, not the bulk of mankind.

The natural sciences do not, however, stand on the same footing with
these instrument-knowledges. Experience shows us that the generality of
men will find more interest in learning that, when a taper burns, the
wax is converted into carbonic acid and water, or in learning the
explanation of the phenomenon of d