It was inevitable that the particular kind of knowledge which is
represented by books should become the property of a certain caste;
and it was inevitable that this caste should confine the hereditary
transmission of that knowledge chiefly to such works as had been
transmitted from the previous generation.
Fortunately, the literate caste could not extinguish literature. For
the presumptively less sacred writings which had been denied entrance
to the canon because they were _new_ were, so to speak, allowed to lie
around loose where everybody could get at them. Thus the true magic of
book-knowledge was released from the boundaries of caste, and became
more and more a universal property.
But nobody had any great respect for this growing body of “profane”
literature. Popular awe was reserved for the body of sacred literature
in the possession of the specifically literate caste. Frequently the
distinction was marked by a deliberate difference in the languages or
characters in which the two kinds of literature were written--sacred
literature being written in the older, hieratic writing which nobody
not of the literate caste could read.
Note the result at this stage of the process: it is precisely those
books which are, on the whole, least likely to be of present value to
mankind, which are regarded with superstitious reverence. The most
striking example is found in pre-revolutionary China, where the relics
of an age utterly out of touch with the newer achievements in human
adaptation were learned by heart in the schools and made the basis of
civil-service examinations.
At this point of our ideal but not at all fanciful sketch, a new factor
enters--class jealousy. The literate caste is found to be associated
and partly identified with the leisure class. Sacred literature has
become leisure class literature, and the aspirations of the less
fortunate classes toward leisure class prerogatives include a special
desire, tinged with the old superstitious reverence, for the forbidden
books. These were more or less unconsciously supposed to be, if
not actually responsible for, at least bound up with, leisure class
power. And finally the great democratizing movements in which some
enterprising lower class wrests from some moribund leisure class its
possessions, seizes triumphant hold on its “classics” and makes them a
general possession.
This sketch is so pieced together from all times and places that it
may decidedly seem to need the reinforcement of evidence. Let us
therefore call to the stand that young man over there who looks like
an Intelligent Young Immigrant. He comes unabashed, and we proceed to
question him:
Q. Do you buy books?
A. Yes, of course.
Q. Admirable! You need a new pair of shoes, and yet you buy books!
Well, what books do you buy?