Aristotle's Metaphysics, nor more repugnant to government than that much that he hath said in his Politics, nor more ignorantly than a great part of his Ethics."
If a man like Hobbes speaks thus of Aristotle, what right have I to do what you ask me to do, and to leave in or to leave out the very first name on Sir John Lubbock's list of the Classics of the World—namely, that of Aristotle? I pray thee, have me excused.
PROFESSOR J. S. BLACKIE (Edinburgh).
No man, it appears to me, can tell another what he ought to read. A man's reading, to be of any value, must depend on his power of assimilation; and that again depends on his tendencies, his capacities, his surroundings, and his opportunities. But a man may reasonably say to another that there are certain epochs in the history of the race so significant, certain men as the creature forces in those epochs so prominent, and certain types, aspects, and attitudes of physical nature so eloquent with divine wisdom, that to be ignorant of them shows a man to be of a narrow, isolated nature, cut off from all those streams of moral and intellectual wealth which the past is ever pouring into the veins of the present, and with which the powers of the physical world are constantly stimulating the unblunted sense; and there are certain books which may be named as the best helps towards sharing in this wealth, though, of course, it is not the particular book but the subject of the book that is important; and if a man only comes face to face with a great subject or a great personality, it is of little consequence through what channel or channels he arrives at the result. But in attempting to frame such a list as that put forth by Sir John Lubbock, it is also of the utmost importance to keep in view what sort of persons we are favouring with our advice; and here I see two altogether different classes of readers, those who have large leisure and have gone through a regular process of severe intellectual discipline, and those who can only redeem a few hours daily, if so much, to fill up the gaps left in the hasty architecture of their early attempt at self-culture. To this latter class belong a great number of young men who in our busy centres of trade and commerce are found to associate themselves into clubs or unions for the sake of moral and intellectual improvement. This is the class to which advice of the kind that has been offered is likely to be most useful; those on a higher platform are more able to shape a course for themselves; and I shall accordingly omit in the list which I append not a few names of the highest significance which are practically beyond the reach of the class to which I allude. To a political student on the highest platform, of course, Aristotle and Thucydides are supreme authorities; but it would be unreasonable to expect that the mass of intelligent young men in our great cities, untrained in intellectual gymnastics, and unfurnished with scholarly aids, should set themselves systematically to grapple with severe thinkers of this type. Metaphysics and metaphysical theology I have excluded from similar practical considerations. All attempts of the finite mind to take the measure of the infinite must always be more or less unsatisfactory; and whatever good may accrue to a certain class of thinkers from the study of Spinoza, Hegel, and Herbert Spencer, it is wiser to remit the great majority of thoughtful persons to the healthy instincts of such broadly human poets as Homer, Shakspeare, Walter Scott, and Robert Burns, and especially also to the Book of Job, and to those of the Psalms of David, such as the xix., the ciii, the civ., and the cvii., which are most broadly human and least specially Jewish in their range and in their tone.
I.—History and Biography
The Bible.
Homer.
Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians.
Max Von Duncker's History of the Ancient World.
Plutarch's Lives.
Herodotus.
History of Greece—Grote or Curtius.
History of Rome—Arnold or Mommsen.
Menzel's History of the Germans.
Green's History of the English People.
Life of Charlemagne.
Life of Pope Hildebrand.
The Crusades.
Sismondi's History of the Italian Republics.
Prescott's Mexico and Peru.
Prescott's„ Ferdinand and Isabella.
Italy, by Professor Spalding.
Chronicles of Froissart.
The Normans—Freeman and Thierry.
Motley's Dutch Republic.
Life of Gustavus Adolphus.
The French Revolution—Thiers, Carlyle, Alison.
Bourrienne's Life of Napoleon.
Wellington's Peninsular Campaign.
Southey's Life of Nelson.
America—Bancroft.
The Stuart Rising of 1745, by Robert Chambers.
Carlyle's Life of Cromwell.
Forster's Statesmen of the Commonwealth.
Life of Dr.Arnold—Stanley.
Life of Dr. Norman Macleod.
Life of Baron Bunsen.
Neander's Church History.
Life of Luther.
History of Scottish Covenanters, Dodd's.
Dean Stanley's Jewish Church.
Milman's Latin Christianity.
II.—Religion and Morals
The Bible.
Socrates in Plato and Xenophon.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Meditations.
Epictetus, Seneca.
The Hitopadesa and Dialogues of Krishna.
St. Augustine's Confessions.
Jeremy Tavlor.
Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.
James Martineau.
Æsop's Fables.
III.—Poetry and Fiction
Homer.
Virgil.
Dante.
The Niebelungen Lay.
The Morte d'Arthur.
Chaucer.
Shakspeare.
Spenser.
Goethe—Faust, Meister, and Eckermann's Conversations.
Milton.
Pope.
Cowper.
Campbell.
Wordsworth.
Walter Scott.
Burns.
Charles Lamb.
Dean Swift, "Tale of a Tub," "Gulliver's Travels."
Tennyson.
Browning.
Don Quixote.
Goldsmith, "Vicar of Wakefield."
George Eliot.
"Robinson Crusoe."
Andersen's Fairy Tales, "Mother Bunch," Grimm's Household Stories, Popular Songs and Ballads, specially Scotch, English, Irish, and German.
