CHAPTER LXXXIV A GOOD LIFE IS MORE ESSENTIAL THAN KNOWLEDGE 1. Not to know at large of things remote VAIN KNOWLEDGE From use, obscure and subtle, but to know Is the prime Wisdom! 2. Shall any gazer see with mortal eyes, Or any searcher know by mortal mind? 3. Stars sweep and question not. This is enough 4. Cease from an inordinate desire of knowing, for therein is much distraction and deceit. 5. Many words do not satisfy the soul, but a good life comforteth the mind, and a pure conscience giveth great assurance. 6. The sun does not warm all upon whom it shines; so wisdom does not inflame all whom she teaches what to do, with a desire to do it. 7 It is one thing to know about many treasures, an A Good Life is more Essential than Knowledge 265 other thing to possess them, and it is not knowledge but possession that makes rich. 8. Try to discuss little, but to do a great deal. If one does not take care one's whole life slips away in theorising, and we want a second career for practice. 9. There is always a risk lest we fancy ourselves to have advanced in proportion to our theories about perfection. LOVE 10. If thou didst know the whole Bible by heart, and the sayings of all the philosophers, what would all that profit thee, without love in thy heart? 11. The loving worm within its clod Were diviner than a loveless god Amid his worlds. IS GREATER THAN KNOWLEDGE 12. I had rather feel compunction than understand the definition thereof. 13. Better it is to have a small portion of good sense with humility, and a slender understanding, than great treasures of sciences with vain self-complacency. 14. Learning is not to be blamed, nor the mere knowledge of anything whatsoever to be disliked, it being good in itself, but a good conscience and a virtuous life is always to be preferred before it. 15. But because many endeavour rather to get knowledge than to live well, therefore they are often deceived, and reap either none, or very slender profit of their labours. 16. To feed one good man is infinitely more meritorious than attending to questions about heaven and earth, spirits and demons. 17. Let knowledge grow from more to more, But vaster. 18. True wisdom consists in knowing one's duty exactly true piety in acting what one knows. EVIL KNOWLEDGE 19. In some things be not anxious to inquire: Far better is it oft to leave them hid. 20. The knowledge of wickedness is not wisdom, neither at any time the counsel of sinners prudence. INSIGHT INTO THE HUMAN 21. Surely, surely, the only true knowledge of our fellow-man is that which enables us to feel with him-which gives us a fine ear for the heart-pulses that are beating under the mere clothes of circumstance and opinion. HEART 22. No wonder the sick-room and the lazaretto have so often been a refuge from the tossings of intellectual doubt, a place of repose for the worn and wounded spirit. 23. Here is a duty about which all creeds and all philosophies are at one; here, at least, the conscience will not be dogged by doubt, the benign impulse will not be checked by adverse theory. Here you may begin to act without settling one preliminary question. 24. Within the four walls, where the stir and glare of the world are shut out and every voice is subdued, where a human being lies prostrate, thrown on the tender mercies of his fellows, the moral relation of man to man is reduced to its utmost clearness and simplicity; bigotry cannot confuse it, theory cannot pervert it. IN TRUE RELIGION THE MORAL SENTIMENT IS SUPREME FIRST THY 1. If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way: first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. 2. He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? 3. Morality no longer depends on the religious sanction; it is religion that depends on the moral sanction. 4. The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath. 5. Bring your doctrines, your priesthoods, your precepts, yea, even the inner devotion of your soul, before the tribunal of Conscience. She is no man's and no god's vicar, but the supreme judge of man and of gods. 6. The gold of morality has been variously coined in the world's religious systems; various have been the images of the king in whose name it was issued. But their value, in so far as they had value, was in the moral gold that they contained, and in naught else. 7. The early Romans built temples and offered sacrifices to the highest human excellencies, to FROM THEOLOGY TO MORALS Valour, to Truth, to Good Faith, to Modesty, to Charity, to Concord. 8. When all else has passed away, when theologies have yielded up their real meaning, and creeds and symbols have become transparent, it will be found that the Virtues, which the Romans made into gods, contain in them the essence of true religion. 9. The progress of religion is steadily to its identity with morals. 10. If theology shows that opinions are fast changing, it is not so with the convictions of men with regard to conduct; these remain. 11. Say ye: "The spirit of man has found new roads, And we must leave the old faiths and walk there in " ? Leave then the Cross, as ye have left carved gods, 12. Imagination and genius, in their most inspired moments, can picture nothing brighter in heaven than Moral Goodness. 13. The commanding fact, which I never lose sight of, is the sufficiency of the moral sentiment. 14. Let this day's performance of duty be thy religion. |