CXIII.
He persistently dwells on Hallam’s capabilities. Sorrow may teach wisdom; but how much more sleeps with him, who would not only have guided the survivor, but served all public ends.
He thinks his friend might have become a leading statesman of the day—a pilot to weather the storm, when the greatest social agonies prevailed.
CXIV.
“Who loves not Knowledge”? He would have it pursued to its utmost limits; but in the keen searchings of the scientific there is this danger, that conclusions are apt to be accepted before they have been proved.
When “cut from love and faith,” Science is no more than “some wild Pallas from the brain of Demons”—like Minerva, who sprang all armed and full-grown from the brain of Jupiter.
Science, too often,
“leaps into the future chance,
Submitting all things to desire.
Half-grown as yet, a child, and vain”—
and therefore needing caution and restraint.