LECT. VII.]

ASSIMILATION AND OPINIONS.

107

critics to have exerted a powerful influence upon the subsequent writings of Byron and Shelley and Scott. A casual reading of it in a little circle in which Shelley was present affected him so deeply that he fainted. Some of his poems published afterwards bore traces of the poetic stimulus which his imagination then received. Mr. Lockhart says that it was the hearing of "Christabel" from manuscript which led Scott to produce the "Lay of the Last Minstrel." It gave to all those poets a conception of the possibilities of the English language in freedom of versification, and specially in the expression of supernatural imagery, which was new to them. Their minds drank it in, and appropriated it, as flowers do light. Yet what critic has ever thought to charge them with imitating "Christabel"? Assimilation of it in their poetic culture rendered mannerism in copying it impossible.

Further it should be observed that identity of opinions with those of a great author is no evidence of assimilation to his genius. It no more follows that a man has a Platonic or an Aristotelian mind because he adopts Platonic or Aristotelian opinions than that his body belongs to one or another of the molluscan species because his digestion craves a molluscan diet. Assimilation goes deeper than the plane of opinions. In any broad culture it will be generous to diverse models. From the fountains of conflicting opinions it will derive the fluids of its own life, and they shall be all the more pure and the more vital for the mingling.

It is a mark of a narrow culture that a man feels no sympathy of resemblance to widely different characters in the history of thought, even to those whose opinions are in flat contradiction. Great minds are more nearly

alike in their genius than in their opinions. Great and sincere minds tend always to unanimity in their final influence. A student of their works may become more sensible of this than they themselves were. You may derive from them a more generous growth than they had. You may feel the identity in spirit of the very works in which, perhaps, they fought each other as champions of rival factions.

Among the recent discoveries in Athenian architec ture, it has been found that the lines of a Doric column, which have for ages been supposed to be vertical, and parallel to each other, are almost imperceptibly con vergent as they ascend from the pedestal; so that, if projected to an immense height above, they would meet in a point. It is believed that the Greek artistic mind adopted this model, not fortuitously, but with design, to express thus the ultimate oneness of all ideas of beauty.

So it is with the aspirations of great minds as ex pressed in their works. They seem to run in grooves of eternal parallels, in which they can never come together. They might traverse the universe apparently, and come around to the point of their starting, as defiant of union as ever. But the great Architect of mind has not so constructed them. An appreciative student of their works may discern, what they could not, a point in the upper firmament of thought in which the lines of their influence converge, and they become as one mind in their projection upon the world's future.

Do not all generous minds already judge thus of the two great lines of thought represented by Aristotle and Plato? Do not such minds feel the same ultimate

LECT. VII.]

HIGH CULTURE LIBERAL.

109

sympathy between the life's work of Leibnitz and of Bacon? Do we not often catch glimpses of the same destiny of union between Kant and the Scotch philosophers? Let a scholarly mind keep itself open and receptive in its study, and it can not fail to experience this consciousness of the convergence of the great thinkers through the blending of them in its own culture.

One advantage, therefore, of literary study, is that it tends to liberalize mental culture in those lines of thought in which culture is most profound. By such discipline we become disinthralled from partisanship. Be it in philosophy, in theology, in æsthetics, in art, a partisan spirit is sure to be outgrown. Positive as our opinions may be, we spurn bondage to schools of opinion. One of the most striking evidences often of a young man's growth under such discipline as I am advocating is, that he outgrows a school of something in which he was once an enthusiast, and unconsciously a servitor. As we approach maturity of culture, we become conscious that we have a culture which lies deeper than our opinions, and which runs under opposing schools.

Our expressed opinions may often be governed by the wants of our own age or the business of our own profession. They may represent but a fraction of the entire circle of our beliefs. But a perfect culture might master the beliefs of all ages, so as to hold all the truth that was ever in them. Assimilation to the loftiest in literature may give us a vision of truths which minds of narrower discipline will ignore. Thus expanded in its culture, a scholarly mind becomes eclectic in its opinions in every thing. It becomes

calm also in the utterance of them. It will be generous to opponents in proportion to its trust in itself. It can afford to cherish both these qualities of a liberal mind.

One other remark upon this point of assimilation to the genius of literature is that from its nature it must be the work of time. All mental discipline is such, but this peculiarly: no man reaches it at a bound. A sudden appearance of it in a man's professions is suspicious. He is probably self-deceived. His enthusiasm for the great authors is probably not a genuine growth into their likeness, but an upstart fancy for them, — for their defects, it may be, rather than for their excellences. It may be even so poor a thing as an affectation of sympathy with their reputation, instead of a genuine reverence for their character. In the nature of the case, like all other enduring growths, a true assimilation to the noblest ideals is the process of a lifetime. A collegiate and professional education can do little more than to plant the germ of it, and fertilize the soil which shall nurture it through life.

LECTURE VIII.

OBJECTS OF A PASTOR'S STUDY OF LITERATURE, CONTHE ADJUSTMENT OF SELF-ADAPTA

CLUDED.
TIONS.

To the three objects of literary study already considered should be added a fourth, which is to facilitate a man's knowledge of his own powers and adaptations to professional labor.

It is unsafe to trust incautiously the early fascinations of books or men over a young mind. Our earliest tastes may give us false ideas of our own capacities. Specially do we need to study our favorite authors with reference to our adaptations to our life's work. We are not supposed to be mere literati by profession. We do not study literature for its own sake and that only: . we have a laborious profession in prospect. Our studies must fit us for that, or they may become a hinderance to our life's work. We need to know our own adaptations; and that literary enthusiasm is a woful blunder which misleads us in that self-knowledge.

The theory of Jesuitism in one respect is most instructive. The whole Jesuit policy turns upon the adaptation of men to work, and work to men. The Jesuit theory is, that every man is better fitted, or may be made so, to one thing than to another; and that every work requires one man more imperatively than