former days. His knowledge was not, perhaps, very wide, but it was
generally exact; indeed, the accuracy with which he grasped facts
that belonged to the realm of history proper was sometimes in
strange contrast to the fanciful way in which he reasoned from them,
or to the wildness of his conjectures in the prehistoric region.
For metaphysics strictly so called he had apparently little turn--
his reading did not go far beyond those companions of his youth,
Aristotle and Bishop Butler; and philosophical speculation
interested him only so far as it bore on Christian doctrine.
Neither, in spite of his eminence as a financier and an advocate of
free trade, did he show much taste for economic studies. On
practical topics, such as the working of protective tariffs, the
abuse of charitable endowments, the development of fruit-culture in
England, the duty of liberal giving by the rich, the utility of
thrift among the poor, his remarks were always full of point,
clearness, and good sense, but he seldom launched out into the wider
sea of economic theory. He must have possessed mathematical talent,
for he took a first class in mathematics at Oxford, at the same time
as his first in classics, but it was a subject he soon dropped.
Regarding the sciences of nature, the sciences of experiment and
observation, he seemed to feel as little curiosity as any educated
man who notes the enormous part they play in the modern world can
feel. Sayings of his have been quoted which show that he
imperfectly comprehended the character of the evidence they rely
upon and of the methods they employ. On one occasion he astonished
a dinner-table of younger friends by refusing to accept some of the
most certain conclusions of modern geology. No doubt he belonged
(as the famous Lord Derby once said of himself) to a pre-scientific
age; still, it was hard to avoid thinking that he was unconsciously
influenced by a belief that such sciences as geology and biology,