; and if it fails in this, let it be called
useless and hollow. But if there are wants in human nature which
demand to be satisfied, which make life a burden unless they are
satisfied, is that not to be called practical which answers to
these wants? And if some of them are of that peculiar nature that
they can only be satisfied by knowledge, or by theoretical
contemplation, is this knowledge, is this theoretical
contemplation, not useful,--useful even in the eyes of the most
decided Utilitarian? Might it not happen that what he calls
theoretical philosophy seems useless and barren to the
Utilitarian, because his ideas of men are too narrow? It is
dangerous, and not quite becoming, to lay down the law, and say
from the very first, 'You must not have more than certain wants,
and therefore you do not want more than a certain philosophy!' If
we may judge from Mr. Macaulay's illustrations, his ideas of human
nature are not very liberal. 'If we were forced,' he says, 'to
make our choice between the first shoemaker and Seneca, the author
of the books on Anger, we should pronounce for the shoemaker. It
may be worse to be angry than to be wet. But shoes have kept
millions from being wet; and we doubt whether Seneca ever kept
anybody from being angry.' I should not select Seneca as the
representative of theoretical philosophy, still less take those
for my allies whom Mr. Macaulay prefers to Seneca, in order to
defeat theoretical philosophers. Brennus threw his sword into the
scale in order to make it more weighty. Mr. Macaulay prefers the
awl. But whatever he may think about Seneca, there is another
philosopher more profound than Seneca, but in Mr. Macaulay's eyes
likewise an unpractical thinker. And yet in him the power of
theory was greater than the powers of nature and the most common
wants of man. His meditations alone gave Socrates his serenity
when he drank the fatal poison. Is there, among all evils, one
greater than the dread of death? And the remedy against this, the
worst of all physical evils, is it not practical in the best sense
of the word? True, some people might here say, that it would have
been more practical if Socrates had fled from his prison, as
Criton suggested, and had died an old and decrepit man in Boeotia.
But to Socrates it seemed more practical to remain in pris