THE VALUE OF KNOWLEDGE. BY THE REV. W. H. FURNESS, D. D. ALTHOUGH no moral worth can justly be attributed to the man who is honest, industrious, and temperate, merely for the sake of the honour and thrift to which these qualities conduce, yet modes of thinking prevail, which cause the intrinsic value of these virtues to be overlooked, and lead men to account them solely or chiefly valuable as means, means to the attainment of some one of the authorized objects of pursuit, ease, wealth, or place. Unquestionably they are the best qualifications for success in life. Still it greatly derogates from their essential worth, to regard them only as means to something better; as if anything the world has to give could be better than virtue itself. It is at once the most solid wealth, and the highest dignity. It is to be estimated, not only, nor principally as a means of worldly well-being, but as an end, as life's noblest end. And he has the true way of thinking, who, instead of being industrious and temperate that he may be rich, is ambitious of being rich that he may have a larger sphere of activity, and a better opportunity of self-control. As it is important that men should know that personal virtue is the great means of happiness, so is it certainly not less important that we should see, far more clearly than we commonly do, that happiness, or rather the possession of those things in which happiness is generally considered to consist, should be a means of virtue, of personal improvement, and should be sought on this account, and for the sake of this good end. As it is in the moral concerns of life, so is it in relation to intellectual pursuits, the acquisition of knowledge. In order to demonstrate the value of knowledge, it might seem to most persons to be enough simply to enumerate its practical benefits, to show its utility, how it contributes to the daily purposes of life, and confers power, power over inanimate nature, power over men, putting the sceptre of the physical universe in our grasp, and pouring its treasures at our feet. But even were we able to specify all the uses of knowledge, the half would not be told. After all, there would remain for the love and pursuit of knowledge, a reason above all these reasons; namely, in knowledge itself. When Henry More, the old platonising divine, was asked why he studied so hard, he replied, "That I may know." When he was asked again, why he wanted to know, again he made answer, "That I may know." Apparently he gave no reason for his intellectual toil; but, in fact, he gave the very best reason. For there is an absolute worth in knowledge which cannot be computed. It is the natural and necessary food of the mind, the nutriment of our intellectual being. It is in us an ineradicable instinct, to crave knowledge as we crave daily bread. A striking analogy presents itself here between the body and the mind. As the former desires food, so does the mind hunger to know. And this intellectual appetite is felt before we can possibly have any experience of the benefits of knowledge. This simple fact, by the way, that we desire knowledge before we have the least idea of its advantages, claims particular attention; because it furnishes a decisive argument against that false philosophy, which has unhappily become the practical, unwritten philosophy of the present day, and which maintains that selfish calculation is the grand spring and wheel of all human activity, that, in all that a man does, whether it be good or evil, he has always an eye to his own pleasure or profit, and that the purest virtue is only a disguised self-seeking. Against this doctrine, so painfully repugnant to every generous sentiment, Nature herself does most emphatically testify. Here is the natural desire of knowledge, for instance, one of the primal facts in the constitution of man. It is the instinctive yearning of the mind towards something out of itself. It is obviously originated by no calculations of selfinterest. For it springs up within us antecedently to any perception on our part of the uses of knowledge. Even the common bodily appetite for food is not, in the first instance, nor ever, while the body is in health, the offspring of calculation. The infant, when it first hungers for nourishment, does not know whether the food it craves will nourish or destroy. Nor can you excite hunger in a sick man by discoursing ever so eloquently upon "the ordinance and institution of eating." But, without discussing the point any farther, we recommend to such of our readers as may wish to know the truth in regard to the possibility of disinterestedness, the writings of one of the profoundest of modern thinkers, Bishop Butler. To his Eleventh Discourse, which is an admirable exposition of the principles of human action, Sir James Mackintosh, in his "View of the Progress of Ethical Philosophy," points as to the dawn of sound philosophy in these later times. To return; there is in man a natural desire of knowledge. It does not look beyond knowledge to any benefit which is to accrue therefrom, but it rests in knowledge as its end. It is not confined within any assignable sphere. It is not limited to things that are at hand. To the remotest objects in time and space it turns with an interest even more intense than is awakened by what is near. Let the light of knowledge fill never so large a circle, still the mind pants, by the instinct of its nature, to penetrate the dark beyond. Would you be made conscious of this fact of your nature? Cast one earnest look at the grand dome overhead, and those still fires, hanging so mysteriously there, will instantly provoke "the sacred hunger" of the mind. The aspect of the heavens displays, as in some boundless hall, the natural food of the mind, and nature invites us to enter there, and subsist as in our rightful dwelling. All things challenge our curiosity. They summon us to inquire and know. How great the faculty by which a relationship, closer than that of flesh and blood, is revealed between the mind of man and the immeasurable universe. It connects him with Immensity and Eternity; for there are no depths of time or space into which it does not urge him to plunge. It is a badge of his present dignity, a prophecy of his destination. Consider any individual, no matter how obscure, or how he may be bent and scarred by labour, consider how there is folded up within him a power by which he is related, not only to what he sees and knows, but to what is unseen and unknown; binding him, as by a visible tie, to all existence. His being, thus regarded, dilates beyond the scope of imagination. We contemplate a mighty nature, of which the visible shape is but a dim and vanishing symbol. One of the most pitiable objects on earth is a human being, in whom stirs no curiosity, no desire of knowledge. Captain Cook tells us that, as he approached one of the islands of the Southern Ocean, a solitary savage was descried, fishing from a canoe. As the vessel of the European drew near, and sought communication with him, he evinced not the slightest astonishment. There was no reason to suppose that he had ever witnessed such a sight before, or that he was bound, as some barbarians are, by his ideas of dignity to express no surprise. His indifference is represented as pure stupidity. Such a condition of human nature seems so abject, that one is almost inclined to think that it must have been a spectral illusion, floating there on the wave, and not a real man with the complete faculties of a man. When, in other instances, the same illustrious navigator tells us of the ardent curiosity of the new tribes that he visited; this one fact redeems the picture of savage desolation, and is a compensation for all the want and ignorance with which it is associated. The mere act of knowing, the simple perception of truth satisfies and delights us. It sometimes seems to be thought that the pursuit of knowledge is painful and laborious, and that there would be no inducement to it, were it not for the practical purposes to which the intellectual stores we may gather admit of being put. And there is a disposition to undervalue all intellectual pursuits that are not productive of some direct tangible benefit, and to discourage all labour of this sort, upon which there is not the fullest insurance in dollars and cents. We have no intention of advocating, in opposition to this tendency, the false notion of the wise men of antiquity, who held it derogatory to the dignity of science and philosophy to apply them to what they pronounced the mean and material interests of every-day life. But we do affirm that the jealous regard, anciently cherished for the honour of science, this uncompromising recognition of its intrinsic excellence, gave a freedom and nobleness to scientific labours, of which they are in danger of being wholly destitute in these modern days, when the mind, with all its wondrous, Godinspired faculties, is wont to be treated as a mere mechanical contrivance to promote the purposes of our social and domestic economy. At all events, into whatever errors ancient wisdom was betrayed by its religious reverence for the intrinsic nobleness of knowledge, we are liable to errors fully as injurious, from our unsleeping avidity to secure its marketable advantages. We have well-nigh forgotten that it has a value in itself, and are ready to defy all studies as barren and worthless that do not serve the common objects of life. We repeat, therefore, the bare vision of truth, of things as they are, produces, or rather it is, an inde finable satisfaction. For the truth of this proposition, we appeal not to poetry-to any of the fine arts, but to those sciences, which, while they are the richest in the applications, of which they admit, to useful purposes, are deemed the most homely and uninviting in themselves. We shall not rely for illustrations of the intrinsic delights of knowledge, upon such questionable cases as that of Dr. Busby, whose enthusiasm for the classics was so great, that he is said to have died of bad Latin. But we refer the reader to the mathematical sciences for us, the great inventors and discoverers, the philosophers and poets never reasoned thus. They recognised the absolute as well as the relative value of truth; and for its own dear sake they toiled. There were no price-currents in the days of Homer and Milton. And had there been such things then, think you, those great men would have looked into them to see whether epic poems were in demand, before they set to work to produce the Iliad and the Paradise Lost? Or was Walter Scott prevented from writing those brilliant romances by the knowledge that novels had long been a drug? -to Geometry. In no department of know- 1 greatest inquirers. The invaluable labours of ledge is such an unmixed pleasure taken in Galileo were ridiculed as useless, and, by inthe simple contemplation of truth as in these. sisting that knowledge must be lucrative, point No rhetorical art, no figures of speech have was given to the text of the itinerant friar, had such potent charms as the crabbed figures who, wretchedly punning upon the name of of arithmetic. It would be a strange sight Galileo, preached against him from the words, now-a-days, to see a venerable mathematician, "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up such as our Bowditch was, break forth, like him into Heaven?" Must it not quench the poet's of old, who, when the solution of a problem that inspiration to be perpetually reminded by the had long defied his sagacity, flashed upon him, whole spirit of the age that he must prove the rushed out into the street, shouting at the top use of his beauteous creations? "Of what of his voice, "I have found it! I have found conceivable use," many cry, "is a man's learnit!" And yet, every one who has given par-ing, if it brings him in no money?" Happily ticular attention to studies of this sort, sympathizes with the enthusiasm that prompted to such an outbreak, and knows by personal experience, the pleasure produced by the simple perception of mathematical truth. What a striking illustration of the intrinsic beauty of knowledge is given in the notices of Archimedes! So engrossing was his devotion to his darling science, that he forgot to eat and drink and pay common attention to his person; and when they dragged him to the bath, he occupied himself with drawing diagrams in the ashes, or on the ointment which was put upon his body. He held it to be trifling with the pure truths which he studied, even to apply them to the construction of engines for the defence of the city where he dwelt, against the formidable armies of Rome. And when he had put them to use in this way with such success that, if but the end of a bare pole appeared above the walls, the besiegers were smitten with the dread of some new machinery to be turned against them, still the power and the renown thus acquired, seemed to him but as the baubles of a child, in comparison with the delicious pleasures of Geometry. Amidst the uproar of the siege, he fled to his beloved pursuit; and when the city was taken, he was found lost in study. The law of self-defence, which, we are assured, is the first law of nature, was to him no law at all. He forgot that he had a life to defend, and resented the entrance of the soldier who rushed in upon him with a drawn sword, not as a peril to his person, but as a very impertinent intrusion on his studies, and begged him to wait until the demonstration was finished, and then he would attend to him. The peremptory demand of our times that knowledge shall be immediately available to some profitable purpose, has the effect, not only to cut off every branch of knowledge as worthless, which does not give immediate promise of fruit, (as classical learning for instance,) but it tends to chill the genial glow of our native curiosity. It cools the ardour of intellectual activity. Already has this economical disposition stood in the way of the By watching all so anxiously for the practical results of knowledge, we are sure to defeat ourselves, and lose the very advantages we are so eager to secure. Here is a weighty reason why we should insist upon the intrinsic worth of knowledge. If it is to be turned to a useful account, it must be first and principally loved and sought for itself. That is a comprehensive saying of Bacon's, familiar to us all, that if we would command Nature, we must first implicitly obey her. The same may be said of knowledge. If we would have knowledge to be our faithful servant, we must learn to woo her as a bride. Or, in plainer phrase, it must be sought as an end, if it is to be effectual as a means. It is easy enough to cultivate some one faculty of the mind, the memory, for instance, and accumulate an immense store of facts, which, instead of proving a coat of mail to the understanding, shall only weaken and overpower it. It is common to speak of what is committed to memory, as so much got by heart. So the phrase runs. It is singularly false. For what is usually committed to memory, however trippingly it comes from the tongue, very seldom has a deeper origin, and has very little to do with the heart. But if it is knowledge that we want, knowledge that shall fit us to meet the various and untried occasions of life, and make us stronger for what we know, real, living knowledge, it must be worked up with the very life of our being. As the Mexicans, when they first saw a horseman, mistook the appearance for one animal, so our knowledge, if it is to serve our purposes, must not only seem, but be, one with us. And to acquire such knowledge, we must pursue it for its own sake, and seek it as hidden treasure. If we are for ever computing its profits, looking over and beyond what we have in hand to do, to the distinction we are to acquire, or the money to be made, or the good even which is to result to others, our attention will certainly be distracted, and we shall lack that hearty concentration of our strength, which alone will enable us to grapple with a subject, and "tear out the very heart of it." a ready to confess that no wealth nor honours can for an instant compare with the bare perception of a great truth. "Take, take away," once exclaimed one of these men, "the gaudy triumphs of the world, the long, deathless shout of fame, and give me back that uneasy rapture, when truth first burst upon the startled sight." Of all the labour ever done under the sun, that of the Alchymists was the most worthless. And for a plain reason; they were actuated not by a generous thirst for knowledge, but by motives confessedly selfish, the love of life, and the accursed thirst for gold. They explored nature not for truth, but for the Elixir of Life and the Philosopher's Stone, with the one to turn all things into gold, and to prolong this mortal existence indefinitely with the other. As they were impelled by these sordid principles, their toil, than which none was ever more indefatigable, came to nothing. Occasionally indeed, their higher nature proved too strong for them; and losing sight of their selfish ojects they had their curiosity awakened by the mysterious relations and affinities of matter, incidentally disclosed in the course of their investigations. Thus they rendered incidental service to the invaluable science of Chemistry; and so their pursuits were rescued from unqualified contempt. It is interesting to remark, in this connexion, how continually we defraud ourselves, of all true pleasure and profit, by looking all too anxiously for the effect to be produced on us by any great work of Nature or Art. Hence it happens that any new and wonderful sight, whose beauty has been loudly and generally published, seldom produces its full effect at first, because men look for the effect, and not at the thing itself. Hardly an individual returns from visiting Niagara, who does not confess to a feeling of disappointment, when that miracle first opened upon his view. The reason is obvious. Men visit that world-renowned spot, thinking, not of what they are going to see, but of what they are going to feel, not of the Falls, but of themselves. With the attention thus distracted, they fail of receiving full impression of the wonder. Were any one, How important it is to the very utility of of a bright moonlight night, to be suddenly knowledge that we should recognise its essentransported in his sleep, for an hour, to the tial worth, and, whatever other advantages it foot of Niagara, there can be little doubt, that, may bring, account the simple possession of it when, startled from his slumbers, by the great our chief pleasure, is shown in the case of voice of the waters, he should behold the stu- many of those who have been most distinpendous spectacle, he would be overwhelmed guished for their intellectual successes. How by the sublime vision, and, after sleeping often has it happened that they who have made through the remainder of the night, if indeed the greatest advances in science, and laid the he could sleep again that night, without some world under the greatest obligations, have potent drug, what a glorious dream would he died in extreme poverty, while others were have to tell in the morning! So it is with the making fortunes out of their inventions. From acquisition of knowledge. In whatever depart- such cases it would seem that a single eye to ment a man labours, be it History, Science, knowledge is incompatible with the existence the Fine Arts, or Philosophy, he will be cer- in the same individual of those provident tain to miss the delights of knowledge, if he qualities which enable a man to clutch the does not lose himself in his peculiar pursuit. main chance at a good living. Science is very He must give up his heart to it without re-jealous of the affection of her votaries, and he serve or stipulation. Undoubtedly there are numbers who are impelled to the pursuit of knowledge, not by a pure love of knowledge, but for the sake of her dower, for the distinction they will obtain. But precisely to the extent to which their vision has been double, and not single, and they have looked to fame and not to science, they have failed of both; and never has the intellectual labourer so truly deserved renown, and so richly won it, as when, in the enthusiasm of his pursuits, he has forgotten both the praise, and the very existence of the world. Such an one, is ever who would win her triumphs must give her his whole heart. We mourn over the fate of those, who, while they have made splendid discoveries, have lived in want; as if they had received no reward. But if they had known that they could not have both, wisdom and wealth, and had been permitted to choose, would they have hesitated a single instant? They would immediately have cried, "Let obscurity come, and incessant labour, and the extremest poverty, but give us knowledge, no matter at what cost of personal comfort; we shall account ourselves only too favoured." learning amidst whole shelves of folios. The love of knowledge is the one thing essential. This point is well illustrated in the "Contributions of Q. Q." by two soliloquies, the one of a young lady just from school, who is supposed, as the term is, to have finished her education, and who, wonderful creature! has nothing more to learn. She enumerates with great satisfaction the ologies she has gone clean through, and truly the amount is no trifle. But on the next page, a philosopher is introduced, one who has descended into the depths of knowledge and brought back as his deepest conviction, a sense of his own ignorance. And here we are reminded of a passage it, but for his vanity or ambition. The true in that admirable Essay of Mrs. Barbauld's sign of intellectual life is not the quantity of "Upon the Inconsistency of our Expecta- information one has acquired, nor the abuntions." It should be written upon every young dance of the appliances of learning which he man's heart. "Is knowledge," asks this has collected in the shape of books and librawriter, "the pearl of great price? That too ries, but a steadily increasing desire of knowmay be purchased by steady application, and ledge. The poor man, who has to show, as long solitary hours of study and reflection. his sole literary wealth, only an odd volume, Bestow these and you shall be wise. But,' well thumbed, of some standard work, nay, says the man of letters, what a hardship is the "swart artisan," who has not even a book, it that many an illiterate fellow, who cannot but who, while he is toiling amidst smoke and construe the motto of the arms on his coach, fire at the anvil or the forge, is greedy to shall raise a fortune and make a figure, while know the properties of iron, is more truly an I have little more than the common conveni-educated man than he who sits in the pride of ences of life.' Was it then in order to raise a fortune that you consumed the sprightly hours of youth in study and retirement? Was it to be rich that you grew pale over the midnight lamp and distilled the sweetness from the Greek and Roman spring? You have then mistaken your path, and ill-employed your industry. What reward have I then for all my What reward! A large comprehensive soul, well cleansed from vulgar fears and perturbations and prejudices; able to comprehend and interpret the works of man-of God. A rich, flourishing, cultivated mind, pregnant with inexhaustible stores of entertainment and reflection. A perpetual spring of fresh ideas, and the conscious dignity of superior intelligence. Good heaven! and what reward can you ask besides ?" Even in the humblest occupations, however the desire of gain, and the ambition of rising in the world may tend to stimulate men's energies and insure their elevation, he is, after all and in the end, the most successful artisan, as he certainly is the happiest man, who seeks not money nor distinction chiefly, but perfection in his art, and is bent, not only upon knowing the true principles of his trade, but also upon realizing his knowledge in the product of his labour. labours?' From what has been said it follows that the common excuse given by men engaged in the active pursuits of life for the entire neglect of intellectual culture is quite beside the mark. "Why," they ask, "why should we submit to such hard labour, and read and study? Of what earthly use is it to us? It does very well for those whose profession is learning in one form or another, but it is no concern of ours." Let it be that, commercially speaking, the pursuit of knowledge is of no use to the man of business, that it will not help the sale of a single bale of goods, but rather, through the diversion of mind it may occasion, cause a lucrative transaction now and then to miscarry, still it is a fact, that is not to be ignored, that in every man, whatever may be his walk in life, active or retired, there burns, more or less brightly, the divine fire of mind. Every man has that in him which no mechanical routine will satisfy, which demands know From what we have said it follows that the one thing most desirable to possess is not any amount of information, however large, but an ardent thirst for knowledge. Not he that knows much is the true lover of knowledge, but he, who, whether he knows much or little, is eager to know more, in whom the desire of knowledge burns an unquenchable flame. "Aledge as its natural sustenance, and the absolittle knowledge is a dangerous thing." If this saying be taken without a very essential qualification, then is all knowledge dangerous. For the amount of all human knowledge is very little in comparison with the actual sum of truth. But it is not the little knowledge that is dangerous, but the knowledge, whether little or great, that is accounted by its possessor enough, and which he makes no effort and has no desire to increase. By this estimation of it, he shows that he holds it, not in the love of lute condition of its growth. If there were |
