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whole very often eludes our grasp, and we find ourselves landed in a conclusion without knowing how. We see each step we have taken, but we see not how we arrived at the conclusion. This is a system in one sense too easy, because each step is easy; and in the other it is too difficult, because it is an immense strain on the mind to grasp the whole effect of what is done. Then you are aware of this also, that perhaps the most useful lesson a man can learn is the estimation of probabilities and sifting of evidence. But this is wholly excluded from mathematics, which deal purely with necessary truth. Therefore, it has often been observed, and by no one more forcibly than your own Sir William Hamilton, that a mind formed upon this kind of study is apt to oscillate between the extreme of credulity and scepticism, and is little trained to take those sensible and practical views of the probabilities and the possibilities affecting our daily life, upon which, far more than upon abstract reasoning, the happiness of mankind depends. I may here mention in illustration what was said by a great judge of men and ability—Napoleon Buonaparte. He took for one of his ministers La Place—one of the greatest, perhaps the greatest of mathematicians, and he said of him—"He was a geometer of the first rank; but whose only idea of transacting the business of his department was with reference to the differential and integral calculus."
Now, I pass on to the other study that is the principal occupation of our youth, and that is the study of the Latin and Greek languages, and the history, science, geography, and mythology connected with them—the principal study being language, and the rest only accessories to it. Now, it strikes one, in the first instance, it is rather a narrow view of education that it should be devoted mainly—I had almost said exclusively—to the acquisition of any language whatever. Language is the vehicle of thought, and when thought and knowledge are present, it is desirable as the means of conveying it. It is not a thing to be substituted for it—it is not its equivalent. It presupposes knowledge of things, and is only useful where that
