There is a mass of knowledge so called at the present day
equally useless, and nothing but an encumbrance. We are forced
by circumstances to become familiar with it, but the time
expended on it is lost. No physical ideal--far less any soul-
ideal--will ever be reached by it. In a recent generation
erudition in the text of the classics was considered the most
honourable of pursuits; certainly nothing could be less valuable. In our own
generation, another species of erudition
is lauded--erudition in the laws of matter--which, in itself, is
but one degree better. The study of matter for matter's sake is
despicable; if any can turn that study to advance the ideal of life, it
immediately becomes most valuable. But not without the human ideal. It is
nothing to me if the planets revolve around the sun, or the sun around the
earth, unless I can thereby gather an increase of body or mind. As the
conception of the planets revolving around the sun, the present astronomical
conception of the heavens, is distinctly grander than that of Ptolemy, it is
therefore superior, and a gain to the human mind. So with other sciences,
not immediately useful, yet if they furnish the mind with material of
thought, they are an advance.

But not in themselves--only in conjunction with the human ideal.
Once let that slip out of the thought, and science is of no
more use than the invocations in the Egyptian papyri. The world would be the
gainer if the Nile rose and swept away pyramid and tomb, sarcophagus,
papyri, and inscription; for it seems as if most of the superstitions which
still to this hour, in our own country, hold minds in their sway, originated
in Egypt. The world would be the gainer if a Nile flood of new thought arose
and swept away the past, concentrating the effort of all the races of the
earth upon man's body, that it might reach an ideal of shape, and health,
and happiness.