Suffer even Little Children to Hear the Truth 259 15. This hypnotism begins during the early years of a man's life in a system of compulsory education. 16. Children receive in school the same ideas in regard to the universe which their ancestors entertained, and which are in direct contradiction to contemporary knowledge. CHAPTER LXXXIII WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE LOVE IS IN VAIN AND WITHOUT LOVE KNOWLEDGE IS VAIN INTELLECT 1. The commandment of knowledge is yet higher than the commandment over the will: for it is a commandment over the reason, belief, and understanding of man, which is the highest part of the mind, and giveth law to the will itself. AND CONSCIENCE 2. No eye could be too sound To observe a world so vast, No patience too profound To sort what's here amassed; How man may here best live, no care too great to explore. 3. It is common to distinguish between the intellect and the conscience, and to say that virtuous action is worth more than strong thinking. 4. But we mutilate our nature by thus drawing lines between the energies of the soul, which are indissolubly bound together. 5. Take away thought from virtue, and what remains worthy of a man? 6. Without power of thought what we call conscientiousness shoots out into illusion, exaggeration, pernicious excess. 7. The most cruel deeds on earth have been perpetrated in the name of conscience. Men have hated and murdered one another from a sense of duty. The worst frauds have taken the name of pious. CLEAR THINKING 8. Nothing so favours the chances of evil as a hazy and puzzled mind, that cannot see its way, and knows not precisely whereabouts it is. It is in this winking twilight that the tempter ever comes, and makes his stealthy approaches to the groping, stumbling will. 9. Many of us stumble, not because we lack the desire to do what is right, but because we fail to discern what the right is. 10. There is no walking uprightly in the dark. Zeal will cause you to go apace; but not at all to go right, if judgment guide it not. Erroneous zeal will make you do evil with double violence. 11. No man can do that well which he understandeth not well. Therefore study and take unwearied pains for knowledge; wisdom never grew up with idleness, though the conceit of wisdom doth nowhere more prosper. 12. The understanding must be large, or it cannot be solid; when many particulars are concerned in an action, the overlooking of some may spoil the work. 13. It is prudence that must manage an upright life. 14. He that will walk uprightly must not only difference between simple good and evil, MORAL WISDOM but between a greater good and a less; for most sin in the world consisteth in preferring a lesser good before a greater. 15. He must still keep the balance in his hand, and compare good with good. 16. If a man may lawfully prefer a known lesser good before a greater, and be justified because the lesser is a real good, 17. Then he may be feeding his horse when he should be saving the life of his child or neighbour, or quenching a fire in the city. 18. There is a charity, as well as a zeal, which is not according to knowledge. JOIN 19. Overvalue not the passionate part of duty, but know that judgment is the life of grace and duty, when passions are but lower, uncertain things. KNOWLEDGE ΤΟ SYMPATHY 20 When keen perception unites with goodwill and love, it gets at the heart of man and the world. 21. Our sympathy is often base. We come to them who weep foolishly and sit down and cry for company, instead of imparting to them truth and health in rough electric shocks, putting them once more in communication with their own reason. 22. It is no greater charity to clothe a man's body, than apparel the nakedness of his soul. SPREADING THE 23. It is the cheapest way of beneficence, TRUTH and, like the natural charity of the sun, illuminates another without obscuring itself. 24. To be reserved and caitiff in this part of goodness is the sordidest piece of covetousness, and more contemptible than pecuniary avarice. 25. I make not, therefore, my head a grave, but a treasure of knowledge; I intend no monopoly, but a community in learning; I study not for my own sake only, but for theirs that study not for themselves. 26. Woe to the learned who heap up knowledge, to the self-satisfied philosopher, to the insatiable inquirer, who hoards his lights as a miser his treasure! 27. These evil rich men are daily feasting upon intellectual banquets, while Lazarus patiently suffers hunger. 28. The mind needs to fast as well as the body; it is subject to an intemperance of its own. Men TRUE KNOWLEDGE are filled with what is nought, for such empty knowledge does not promote the interior or the social life. 29. Men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; 30. Sometimes for ornament and reputation, and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession; 31. And seldom sincerely to give a true account of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use of men ; 32. As if there were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit; or a terrace for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down with a fair prospect; 33. Or a tower of state, for a proud mind to raise itself upon; or a fort or commanding ground, for strife and contention; or a shop for profit or sale, 34. And not a rich storehouse for the relief of man's estate. 35. All knowledge is vain that tends not to the practice of some duty. |