ch was a liberal
exercise in Greece, forfeits its rank in times like these, so far as it is
made the occasion of gambling.

All that I have been now saying is summed up in a few characteristic words
of the great Philosopher. "Of possessions," he says, "those rather are
useful, which bear fruit; those _liberal, which tend to enjoyment_. By
fruitful, I mean, which yield revenue; by enjoyable, where _nothing
accrues of consequence beyond the using_."(16)

5.

Do not suppose, that in thus appealing to the ancients, I am throwing back
the world two thousand years, and fettering Philosophy with the reasonings
of paganism. While the world lasts, will Aristotle's doctrine on these
matters last, for he is the oracle of nature and of truth. While we are
men, we cannot help, to a great extent, being Aristotelians, for the great
Master does but analyze the thoughts, feelings, views, and opinions of
human kind. He has told us the meaning of our own words and ideas, before
we were born. In many subject-matters, to think correctly, is to think
like Aristotle, and we are his disciples whether we will or no, though we
may not know it. Now, as to the particular instance before us, the word
"liberal" as applied to Knowledge and Education, expresses a specific
idea, which ever has been, and ever will be, while the nature of man is
the same, just as the idea of the Beautiful is specific, or of the
Sublime, or of the Ridiculous, or of the Sordid. It is in the world now,
it was in the world then; and, as in the case of the dogmas of faith, it
is illustrated by a continuous historical tradition, and never was out of
the world, from the time it came into it. There have indeed been
differences of opinion from time to time, as to what pursuits and what
arts came under that idea, but such differences are but an additional
evidence of its reality. That idea must have a substance in it, which has
maintained its ground amid these conflicts and changes, which has ever
served as a standard to measure things withal, which has passed from mind
to mind unchanged, when there was so much to colour, so much to influence
any notion or thought whatever, which was not founded in our very nature.
Were it a mere generalization, it would have varied with the subjects from
which it was generalized; but though its subjects vary with the age, it
varies not itself. The palaestra may seem a liberal exercise to Lycurgus,
and illiberal to Seneca; coach-driving an