Chapter 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.

If separated from love and faith, she bursts

"All barriers in her onward race
For power."

Science is "second, not the first,"

"For she is earthly of the mind,
But Wisdom heavenly of the soul."

He would have the world wise and modest,

"like thee,
Who grewest not alone in power
And knowledge, but by year and hour
In reverence and in charity."

It may be remarked that, here and elsewhere, the Poet makes a distinction betwixt mind and soul: the former acquiring knowledge which

"is of things we see;"

the latter by faith,

"Believing where we cannot prove;"

even those things which St. Paul says "are not seen and are eternal."