19. Then the second thing I have to show you is that over these three kingdoms of imagination, art, and science, there reigns a virtue or faculty, which from all time, and by all great people, has been recognised as the appointed ruler and guide of every method of labour, or passion of soul; and the most glorious recompense of the toil, and crown of the ambition of man. "She is more precious than rubies, and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her. Lay fast hold upon her; let her not go; keep her, for she is thy life." Are not these, and the innumerable words like to these, which you remember as I read them, strange words, if Aristotle's statement respecting wisdom be true; that it never contemplates anything that can make men happy, "ἡ μέν γὰρ σοφία οὐδέν θεωρει ἐξ ὦν ἔσται εὐδαίμων ἄνθρωπος"? When we next meet, therefore, I purpose to examine what it is which wisdom, by preference, contemplates; what choice she makes among the thoughts and sciences open to her, and to what purpose she employs whatever science she may possess. And I will briefly tell you, beforehand, that the result of the inquiry will be, that instead of regarding none of the sources of happiness, she regards nothing else; that she measures all worthiness by pure felicity; that we are permitted to conceive her as the cause even of gladness to God--"I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him,"--and that we are commanded to _know_ her as queen of the populous world, "rejoicing in the habitable parts of the Earth, and whose delights are with the sons of Men." LECTURE II. OF WISDOM AND FOLLY IN SCIENCE. _10th February, 1872._ 20. In my last lecture I asserted the positive and negative powers of literature, art, and science; and endeavoured to show you some of the relations of wise art to foolish art. To-day we are to examine the nature of these positive and negative powers in science; it being the object of every true school to teach the positive or constructive power, and by all means to discourage, reprove, and extinguish the negative power.