stematic philosophy of
Wordsworth, what Thucydides says of the early achievements of the Greek
race: "It is impossible to speak with certainty of what is so remote;
but from all that we can really investigate, I should say that they were
no very great things."

Finally, the "scientific system of thought" in Wordsworth gives us at
least such poetry as this, which the devout Wordsworthian accepts--

"O for the coming of that glorious time
When, prizing knowledge as her noblest wealth
And best protection, this Imperial Realm,
While she exacts allegiance, shall admit
An obligation, on her part, to _teach_
Them who are born to serve her and obey;
Binding herself by statute to secure,
For all the children whom her soil maintains,
The rudiments of letters, and inform
The mind with moral and religious truth."[380]

Wordsworth calls Voltaire dull, and surely the production of these
un-Voltairian lines must have been imposed on him as a judgment! One can
hear them being quoted at a Social Science Congress; one can call up the
whole scene. A great room in one of our dismal provincial towns; dusty
air and jaded afternoon daylight; benches full of men with bald heads
and women in spectacles; an orator lifting up his face from a manuscript
written within and without to declaim these lines of Wordsworth; and in
the soul of any poor child of nature who may have wandered in thither,
an unutterable sense of lamentation, and mourning, and woe!

"But turn we," as Wordsworth says, "from these bold, bad men," the
haunters of Social Science Congresses. And let us be on our guard, too,
against the exhibitors and extollers of a "scientific system of thought"
in Wordsworth's poetry. The poetry will never be seen aright while they
thus exhibit it. The cause of its greatness is simple, and may be told
quite simply. Wordsworth's poetry is great because of the extraordinary
power with which Wordsworth feels the joy offered to us in nature, the
joy offered to us in the simple primary affections and duties; and
because of the extraordinary power with which, in case after case, he
shows us this joy, and renders it so as to make us share it.

The source of joy from which he thus draws is the truest and most
unfailing source of joy accessible to man. It is also accessible
universally. Wordsworth brings us word, therefore, according to his own
strong and characteristic line, he brings us word

"Of joy in widest commonalt