Part 41 (1/2)
RICCABOCCA.--”Yes; but your knowledge-mongers at present call upon us to discard military discipline, and the qualities that produce it, from the list of the useful arts. And in your own Essay, you insist upon knowledge as the great disbander of armies, and the foe of all military discipline!”
PARSON.--”Let the young man proceed. Nations, you say, may be beaten by other nations less learned and civilized?”
LEONARD.--”But knowledge elevates a cla.s.s. I invite the members of my own humble order to knowledge, because knowledge will lift them into power.”
RICCABOCCA.--”What do you say to that, Mr. Dale?”
PARSON.--”In the first place, is it true that the cla.s.s which has the most knowledge gets the most power? I suppose philosophers, like my friend Dr. Riccabocca, think they have the most knowledge. And pray, in what age have philosophers governed the world? Are they not always grumbling that n.o.body attends to them?”
RICCABOCCA.--”Per Bacco, if people had attended to us, it would have been a droll sort of world by this time!”
PARSON.--”Very likely. But, as a general rule, those have the most knowledge who give themselves up to it the most. Let us put out of the question philosophers (who are often but ingenious lunatics), and speak only of erudite scholars, men of letters and practical science, professors, tutors, and fellows of colleges. I fancy any member of parliament would tell us that there is no cla.s.s of men which has less actual influence on public affairs. These scholars have more knowledge than manufacturers and s.h.i.+powners, squires and farmers; but do you find that they have more power over the Government and the votes of the House of Parliament?”
”They ought to have,” said Leonard.
”Ought they?” said the parson; ”we'll consider that later. Meanwhile, you must not escape from your own proposition, which is, that knowledge is power,--not that it ought to be. Now, even granting your corollary, that the power of a cla.s.s is therefore proportioned to its knowledge, pray, do you suppose that while your order, the operatives, are instructing themselves, all the rest of the community are to be at a standstill? Diffuse knowledge as you may, you will never produce equality of knowledge. Those who have most leisure, application, and apt.i.tude for learning will still know the most. Nay, by a very natural law, the more general the appet.i.te for knowledge, the more the increased compet.i.tion will favour those most adapted to excel by circ.u.mstance and nature. At this day, there is a vast increase of knowledge spread over all society, compared with that in the Middle Ages; but is there not a still greater distinction between the highly educated gentleman and the intelligent mechanic, than there was then between the baron who could not sign his name and the churl at the plough; between the accomplished statesman, versed in all historical lore, and the voter whose politics are formed by his newspaper, than there was between the legislator who pa.s.sed laws against witches and the burgher who defended his guild from some feudal aggression; between the enlightened scholar and the dunce of to-day, than there was between the monkish alchemist and the blockhead of yesterday? Peasant, voter, and dunce of this century are no doubt wiser than the churl, burgher, and blockhead of the twelfth. But the gentleman, statesman, and scholar of the present age are at least quite as favourable a contrast to the alchemist, witch-burner, and baron of old. As the progress of enlightenment has done hitherto, so will it ever do.
”Knowledge is like capital: the more there is in a country, the greater the disparities in wealth between one man and another. Therefore, if the working cla.s.s increase in knowledge, so do the other cla.s.ses; and if the working cla.s.s rise peaceably and legitimately into power, it is not in proportion to their own knowledge alone, but rather according as it seems to the knowledge of the other orders of the community, that such augmentation of proportional power is just and safe and wise.”
Placed between the parson and the philosopher, Leonard felt that his position was not favourable to the display of his forces. Insensibly he edged his chair somewhat away, and said mournfully,--
”Then, according to you, the reign of knowledge would be no great advance in the aggregate freedom and welfare of man?”
PARSON.--”Let us define. By knowledge, do you mean intellectual cultivation; by the reign of knowledge, the ascendency of the most cultivated minds?”
LEONARD (after a pause).--”Yes.”
RICCABOCCA.--”Oh, indiscreet young man! that is an unfortunate concession of yours; for the ascendency of the most cultivated minds would be a terrible oligarchy!”
PARSON.--”Perfectly true; and we now reply to your a.s.sertion that men who, by profession, have most learning, ought to have more influence than squires and merchants, farmers and mechanics. Observe, all the knowledge that we mortals can acquire is not knowledge positive and perfect, but knowledge comparative, and subject to the errors and pa.s.sions of humanity. And suppose that you could establish, as the sole regulators of affairs, those who had the most mental cultivation, do you think they would not like that power well enough to take all means which their superior intelligence could devise to keep it to themselves? The experiment was tried of old by the priests of Egypt; and in the empire of China, at this day, the aristocracy are elected from those who have most distinguished themselves in learned colleges. If I may call myself a member of that body, 'the people,' I would rather be an Englishman, however much displeased with dull ministers and blundering parliaments, than I would be a Chinese under the rule of the picked sages of the Celestial Empire. Happily, therefore, my dear Leonard, nations are governed by many things besides what is commonly called knowledge; and the greatest practical ministers, who, like Themistocles, have made small States great, and the most dominant races, who, like the Romans, have stretched their rule from a village half over the universe, have been distinguished by various qualities which a philosopher would sneer at, and a knowledge-monger would call 'sad prejudices' and 'lamentable errors of reason.'”
LEONARD (bitterly).--”Sir, you make use of knowledge itself to argue against knowledge.”
PARSON.--”I make use of the little I know to prove the foolishness of idolatry. I do not argue against knowledge; I argue against knowledge-wors.h.i.+p. For here, I see in your Essay, that you are not contented with raising human knowledge into something like divine omnipotence,--you must also confound her with virtue. According to you, it is but to diffuse the intelligence of the few among the many, and all at which we preachers aim is accomplished. Nay, more; for, whereas we humble preachers have never presumed to say, with the heathen Stoic, that even virtue is sure of happiness below (though it be the best road to it), you tell us plainly that this knowledge of yours gives not only the virtue of a saint, but bestows the bliss of a G.o.d. Before the steps of your idol, the evils of life disappear. To hear you, one has but 'to know,' in order to be exempt from the sins and sorrows of the ignorant.
Has it ever been so? Grant that you diffuse amongst the many all the knowledge ever attained by the few. Have the wise few been so unerring and so happy? You supposed that your motto was accurately cited from Bacon. What was Bacon himself? The poet tells you
”'The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind!'
”Can you hope to bestow upon the vast ma.s.s of your order the luminous intelligence of this 'Lord Chancellor of Nature'? Grant that you do so, and what guarantee have you for the virtue and the happiness which you a.s.sume as the concomitants of the gift? See Bacon himself: what black ingrat.i.tude! what miserable self-seeking! what truckling servility! what abject and pitiful spirit! So far from intellectual knowledge, in its highest form and type, insuring virtue and bliss, it is by no means uncommon to find great mental cultivation combined with great moral corruption.” (Aside to Riccabocca.--”Push on, will you?”)
RICCASOCCA.--”A combination remarkable in eras as in individuals.
Petronius shows us a state of morals at which a commonplace devil would blush, in the midst of a society more intellectually cultivated than certainly was that which produced Regulus or the Horatii. And the most learned eras in modern Italy were precisely those which brought the vices into the most ghastly refinement.”
LEONARD (rising in great agitation, and clasping his hands).--”I cannot contend with you, who produce against information so slender and crude as mine the stores which have been locked from my reach; but I feel that there must be another side to this s.h.i.+eld,--a s.h.i.+eld that you will not even allow to be silver. And, oh, if you thus speak of knowledge, why have you encouraged me to know?”
CHAPTER XX.