anual labour, is not simply called
liberal, and mercantile occupations are not liberal at all. Why this
distinction? because that alone is liberal knowledge, which stands on its
own pretensions, which is independent of sequel, expects no complement,
refuses to be _informed_ (as it is called) by any end, or absorbed into
any art, in order duly to present itself to our contemplation. The most
ordinary pursuits have this specific character, if they are
self-sufficient and complete; the highest lose it, when they minister to
something beyond them. It is absurd to balance, in point of worth and
importance, a treatise on reducing fractures with a game of cricket or a
fox-chase; yet of the two the bodily exercise has that quality which we
call "liberal," and the intellectual has it not. And so of the learned
professions altogether, considered merely as professions; although one of
them be the most popularly beneficial, and another the most politically
important, and the third the most intimately divine of all human pursuits,
yet the very greatness of their end, the health of the body, or of the
commonwealth, or of the soul, diminishes, not increases, their claim to
the appellation "liberal," and that still more, if they are cut down to
the strict exigencies of that end. If, for instance, Theology, instead of
being cultivated as a contemplation, be limited to the purposes of the
pulpit or be represented by the catechism, it loses,--not its usefulness,
not its divine character, not its meritoriousness (rather it gains a claim
upon these titles by such charitable condescension),--but it does lose the
particular attribute which I am illustrating; just as a face worn by tears
and fasting loses its beauty, or a labourer's hand loses its
delicateness;--for Theology thus exercised is not simple knowledge, but
rather is an art or a business making use of Theology. And thus it appears
that even what is supernatural need not be liberal, nor need a hero be a
gentleman, for the plain reason that one idea is not another idea. And in
like manner the Baconian Philosophy, by using its physical sciences in the
service of man, does thereby transfer them from the order of Liberal
Pursuits to, I do not say the inferior, but the distinct class of the
Useful. And, to take a different instance, hence again, as is evident,
whenever personal gain is the motive, still more distinctive an effect has
it upon the character of a given pursuit; thus racing, whi