He himself earnestly prays that his own and the Aristotelian system may live together, and go hand in hand, the latter to cultivate the mind, the former to discover facts. His words so long forgotten and unheeded by his disciples are: “Let there be therefore, by joint consent, two fountains, or dispensations of doctrine, and two tribes of Philosophers, by no means enemies or strangers, but confederates and mutual auxiliaries to each other; and let there _be one method of_ CULTIVATING, and _another of_ DISCOVERING the sciences. Nor is ours very obvious, _and to be taken at once_, nor tempting to the understanding, nor _suited to vulgar capacities_, but solely rests upon its utility and effects” (_i. e._ upon the way in which it is used and the results which proceed from it). “But no one, sure, can suspect, that we desire to destroy and demolish the philosophy, the arts, and the sciences at present in use; for, _on the contrary, we embrace their use_, and willingly pay them all due honour and observance. For we openly declare that the things we offer, are not very conducive to these purposes (mental exercises), as they cannot be brought down to vulgar capacities, otherwise than by effects and works.”[31] Therefore in advocating the retention of the Aristotelian mode of thinking for students, we do but follow in the footsteps of his great opponent; who yet opposed only when that ancient philosophy was carried beyond, and out of its proper department—the cultivation of the powers of thought, into the discovery of the sciences. “The two faculties of reason and experience,” says Bacon, “should be properly joined and coupled together.” Reason without experience (facts) he compares to a light bird; Experience, without reason to a dull ass. It is better to be the bird than the ass; it is best to be neither, and yet both. It is only by joining experience with reason that the “sober certainty” of the quadruped can be coupled with the “waking bliss,” the ecstatic heavenward flight, of the light and joyous bird. If, like Bacon, we were to endeavour to read the fable of the Sphinx, we would say that it represents the wise mind, which has united reason and experience into a beautiful form; comprehendible by man, but most hard to be comprehended. Its human head portrays that to intellectual man alone it is given to join together its other forms, the wings of a bird, reason; and the body of a quadruped, experience. It is beautiful, for such union is the perfection of wisdom, and ‘O how comely is wisdom!’ It is cruel, for many lives must be sacrificed ’ere it can be discovered, or the problem of its nature be solved.