Words

Extract

The germ of that which follows came into being many years ago in the days of my youth as a university instructor and assistant professor. It was generated by the then quite outspoken attitude of colleagues in the “exact sciences”; the sciences of which the subject-matter can be exactly weighed and measured and the force of its movements mathematically demonstrated. They assured us that the study of languages and literature had little or nothing scientific about it because: “It had no domain of concrete fact in which to work.” Ergo, the scientific spirit was theirs by a stroke of “efficacious grace” as it were. Ours was at best only a kind of “sufficient grace,” pleasant and even necessary to have, but which could, by no means ensure a reception among the elected.