"[391] This is the true
ground to assign for the genuine scientific passion, however manifested,
and for culture, viewed simply as a fruit of this passion; and it is a
worthy ground, even though we let the term _curiosity_ stand to describe
it. But there is of culture another view, in which not solely the
scientific passion, the sheer desire to see things as they are, natural
and proper in an intelligent being, appears as the ground of it. There
is a view in which all the love of our neighbor, the impulses towards
action, help, and beneficence, the desire for removing human error,
clearing human confusion, and diminishing human misery, the noble
aspiration to leave the world better and happier than we found it,--
motives eminently such as are called social,--come in as part of the
grounds of culture, and the main and preeminent part. Culture is then
properly described not as having its origin in curiosity, but as having
its origin in the love of perfection; it is _a study of perfection_. It
moves by the force, not merely or primarily of the scientific passion
for pure knowledge, but also of the moral and social passion for doing
good.
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