97. You may have noticed, perhaps, and with a smile, as one of the paradoxes you often hear me blamed for too fondly stating, what I told you in the close of my Third Introductory Lecture,[22] that "so far from art's being immoral, little else except art is moral." I have now farther to tell you, that little else, except art, is wise; that all knowledge, unaccompanied by a habit of useful action, is too likely to become deceitful, and that every habit of useful action must resolve itself into some elementary practice of manual labor. And I would, in all sober and direct earnestness, advise you, whatever may be the aim, predilection, or necessity of your lives, to resolve upon this one thing at least, that you will enable yourselves daily to do actually with your hands, something that is useful to mankind. To do anything well with your hands, useful or not; to be, even in trifling, [Greek: palamesi daemon], is already much. When we come to examine the art of the Middle Ages, I shall be able to show you that the strongest of all influences of right then brought to bear upon character was the necessity for exquisite manual dexterity in the management of the spear and bridle; and in your own experience most of you will be able to recognize the wholesome effect, alike on body and mind, of striving, within proper limits of time, to become either good batsmen or good oarsmen. But the bat and the racer's oar are children's toys. Resolve that you will be men in usefulness, as well as in strength; and you will find that then also, but not till then, you can become men in understanding; and that every fine vision and subtle theorem will present itself to you thence-forward undeceitfully, [Greek: hypothemosynesin Athenes]. 98. But there is more to be gathered yet from the words of Pindar. He is thinking, in his brief intense way, at once of Athena's work on the soul, and of her literal power on the dust of the Earth. His "[Greek: keleuthoi]" is a wide word, meaning all the paths of sea and land. Consider, therefore, what Athena's own work _actually is_--in the literal fact of it. The blue, clear air _is_ the sculpturing power upon the earth and sea. Where the surface of the earth is reached by that, and its matter and substance inspired with and filled by that, organic form becomes possible. You must indeed have the sun, also, and moisture; the kingdom of Apollo risen out of the sea: but the sculpturing of living things, shape by shape, is Athena's, so that under the brooding spirit of the air, what was without form, and void, brings forth the moving creature that hath life.