relative value of different scientific procedures, we succeed in
forming a school of scientific criticism, and in assisting the
development of the doctrine of method.

But admitting that a practical acquaintance with the methods of
Physical Science is an essential part of a mathematical and scientific
education, we may be asked whether we are not attributing too much
importance to science altogether as part of a liberal education.

Fortunately, there is no question here whether the University should
continue to be a place of liberal education, or should devote itself
to preparing young men for particular professions. Hence though some
of us may, I hope, see reason to make the pursuit of science the main
business of our lives, it must be one of our most constant aims to
maintain a living connexion between our work and the other liberal
studies of Cambridge, whether literary, philological, historical or
philosophical.

There is a narrow professional spirit which may grow up among men of
science, just as it does among men who practise any other special
business. But surely a University is the very place where we should
be able to overcome this tendency of men to become, as it were,
granulated into small worlds, which are all the more worldly for their
very smallness. We lose the advantage of having men of varied
pursuits collected into one body, if we do not endeavour to imbibe
some of the spirit even of those whose special branch of learning is
different from our own.

It is not so long ago since any man who devoted himself to geometry,
or to any science requiring continued application, was looked upon as