But now, says Professor Huxley, conceptions of the universe fatal to the notions held by our forefathers have been forced upon us by physical science.  Grant to him that they are thus fatal, that the new conceptions must and will soon become current everywhere, and that every one will finally perceive them to be fatal to the beliefs of our forefathers.  The need of humane letters, as they are truly called, because they serve the paramount desire in men that good should be forever present to them,—­ the need of humane letters, to establish a relation between the new conceptions, and our instinct for beauty, our instinct for conduct, is only the more visible.  The Middle Age could do without humane letters, as it could do without the study of nature, because its supposed knowledge was made to engage its emotions so powerfully.  Grant that the supposed knowledge disappears, its power of being made to engage the emotions will of course disappear along with it,—­but the emotions themselves, and their claim to be engaged and satisfied, will remain.  Now if we find by experience that humane letters have an undeniable power of engaging the emotions, the importance of humane letters in a man’s training becomes not less, but greater, in proportion to the success of modern science in extirpating what it calls “mediaeval thinking.”

Have humane letters, then, have poetry and eloquence, the power here attributed to them of engaging the emotions, and do they exercise it?  And if they have it and exercise it, how do they exercise it, so as to exert an influence upon man’s sense for conduct, his sense for beauty?  Finally, even if they both can and do exert an influence upon the senses in question, how are they to relate to them the results—­the modern results—­of natural science?  All these questions may be asked.  First, have poetry and eloquence the power of calling out the emotions?  The appeal is to experience.  Experience shows that for the vast majority of men, for mankind in general, they have the power.  Next, do they exercise it?  They do.  But then, how do they exercise it so as to affect man’s sense for conduct, his sense for beauty?  And this is perhaps a case for applying the Preacher’s words:  “Though a man labor to seek it out, yet he shall not find it; yea, farther, though a wise man think to know it, yet shall he not be able to find it."[130] Why should it be one thing, in its effect upon the emotions, to say, “Patience is a virtue,” and quite another thing, in its effect upon the emotions, to say with Homer,

  [Greek:  tlaeton gar Moirai thnmontheoan anthropoisin]—­[131]