But to say that universally this instinct is mighty in childhood, and tends to die away afterwards, is to say what is extremely doubtful.  In many people, perhaps with the majority of educated persons, the love of nature is nearly imperceptible at ten years old, but strong and operative at thirty.  In general we may say of these high instincts of early childhood, the base of the alleged systematic philosophy of Wordsworth, what Thucydides says of the early achievements of the Greek race:  “It is impossible to speak with certainty of what is so remote; but from all that we can really investigate, I should say that they were no very great things.”

Finally, the “scientific system of thought” in Wordsworth gives us at least such poetry as this, which the devout Wordsworthian accepts—­

  “O for the coming of that glorious time
  When, prizing knowledge as her noblest wealth
  And best protection, this Imperial Realm,
  While she exacts allegiance, shall admit
  An obligation, on her part, to teach
  Them who are born to serve her and obey;
  Binding herself by statute to secure,
  For all the children whom her soil maintains,
  The rudiments of letters, and inform
  The mind with moral and religious truth."[380]

Wordsworth calls Voltaire dull, and surely the production of these un-Voltairian lines must have been imposed on him as a judgment!  One can hear them being quoted at a Social Science Congress; one can call up the whole scene.  A great room in one of our dismal provincial towns; dusty air and jaded afternoon daylight; benches full of men with bald heads and women in spectacles; an orator lifting up his face from a manuscript written within and without to declaim these lines of Wordsworth; and in the soul of any poor child of nature who may have wandered in thither, an unutterable sense of lamentation, and mourning, and woe!

“But turn we,” as Wordsworth says, “from these bold, bad men,” the haunters of Social Science Congresses.  And let us be on our guard, too, against the exhibitors and extollers of a “scientific system of thought” in Wordsworth’s poetry.  The poetry will never be seen aright while they thus exhibit it.  The cause of its greatness is simple, and may be told quite simply.  Wordsworth’s poetry is great because of the extraordinary power with which Wordsworth feels the joy offered to us in nature, the joy offered to us in the simple primary affections and duties; and because of the extraordinary power with which, in case after case, he shows us this joy, and renders it so as to make us share it.

The source of joy from which he thus draws is the truest and most unfailing source of joy accessible to man.  It is also accessible universally.  Wordsworth brings us word, therefore, according to his own strong and characteristic line, he brings us word

  “Of joy in widest commonalty spread."[381]

Here is an immense advantage for a poet.  Wordsworth tells of what all seek, and tells of it at its truest and best source, and yet a source where all may go and draw for it.