gal and family union, of the social tie and
civil security, the great Orator implies, that it is only after our
physical and political needs are supplied, and when we are "free from
necessary duties and cares," that we are in a condition for "desiring to
see, to hear, and to learn." Nor does he contemplate in the least degree
the reflex or subsequent action of Knowledge, when acquired, upon those
material goods which we set out by securing before we seek it; on the
contrary, he expressly denies its bearing upon social life altogether,
strange as such a procedure is to those who live after the rise of the
Baconian philosophy, and he cautions us against such a cultivation of it
as will interfere with our duties to our fellow-creatures. "All these
methods," he says, "are engaged in the investigation of truth; by the
pursuit of which to be carried off from public occupations is a
transgression of duty. For the praise of virtue lies altogether in action;
yet intermissions often occur, and then we recur to such pursuits; not to
say that the incessant activity of the mind is vigorous enough to carry us
on in the pursuit of knowledge, even without any exertion of our own." The
idea of benefiting society by means of "the pursuit of science and
knowledge" did not enter at all into the motives which he would assign for
their cultivation.

This was the ground of the opposition which the elder Cato made to the
introduction of Greek Philosophy among his countrymen, when Carneades and
his companions, on occasion of their embassy, were charming the Roman
youth with their eloquent expositions of it. The fit representative of a
practical people, Cato estimated every thing by what it produced; whereas
the Pursuit of Knowledge promised nothing beyond Knowledge itself. He
despised that refinement or enlargement of mind of which he had no
experience.

4.

Things, which can bear to be cut off from every thing else and yet persist
in living, must have life in themselves; pursuits, which issue in nothing,
and still maintain their ground for ages, which are regarded as admirable,
though they have not as yet proved themselves to be useful, must have
their sufficient end in themselves, whatever it turn out to be. And we are
brought to the same conclusion by considering the force of the epithet, by
which the knowledge under consideration is popularly designated. It is
common to speak of "_liberal_ knowledge," of the "_liberal_ arts and
stu