In using the above terms, let it not be supposed that I mean to imply
by the one a perfect knowledge, or a knowledge of everything, and by
the other a perfect ignorance, or a total want of any knowledge. Either
of such conditions of the mind is incompatible with human organization;
the one, a perfect knowledge, belongs alone to an order of intelligence
infinitely excelling that of man; and the other, a perfect ignorance,
must be sought for in creatures so far below him as to possess no
intelligence. The idiot is not without perception and knowledge, though
of an imperfect and irregular kind. The dog knows its master, recognizes
and obeys his voice. The horse knows and traces, after years of absence,
the road he had once been accustomed to travel; and even reptiles and
fishes acquire a knowledge of persons, of times, and of things; all
this being independent of that range of intelligences which has been
given to every creature for the preservation of its own existence, and
for ensuring the continuance of its species. The terms Knowledge and
Ignorance are used, then, in a comparative sense, being, according to
circumstances, convertible one into the other. What, for instance, is
knowledge at one time, becomes ignorance at another; and the man who
seems wise to those who know less than he does, seems equally foolish to
those who know more--a strong reason surely why no one, however gifted he
may to himself appear, should despise his less gifted brethren. Mounted
he may indeed be on a hill so high that he can discern objects in the
distance which are hidden from the more humble plodders of the plain
below, and yet his own horizon be proportionately limited when compared
to that of others who have climbed the still higher mountain above
him. Can we not all bring home to our minds this varying value of our
acquirements at successive periods of our lives? and are we not sometimes
surprised to reflect that some problem was once difficult, or some fact
obscure, which is now as familiar to our understandings as the daylight
to our eyes? We have, in short, as regards these particular objects,
passed from the night of ignorance into the day of knowledge. And us
with the same individual, and even with whole classes of individuals,
at different epochs, so is it with different individuals at the same
time: one person holding in his hand the dim taper of ignorance, sees
by its flickering and ill-directed light the object of his examination,
distorted by partial and shifting shadows--just as some timid traveller
on a dusky night sees in each waving bush, as to his alarmed imagination
it grows to a portentous size, or assumes a fearful form, some aërial
phantom, or some terrestrial monster. The other, raising the bright lamp
of knowledge, dispels at once by its clear and steady light, uncertainty,
and sees the object as it is.
So many indeed are the practical illustrations of the different manner
in which the same object is viewed by knowledge and by ignorance, that
it is difficult to make a first choice. All around us there are objects,
the nature and qualities of which are known to the few, unknown to the
many, and hence either overlooked or misunderstood by the latter, studied
and understood by the former. Each portion, however minute, of our own
body, and of that of every other organic being, has in it wherewithal to
exercise the ingenuity and reflection of the wisest; and yet how many
thousands live and die without having even desired much less sought after
such knowledge! Nor is the inorganic world less fruitful in subjects
of inquiry, nor less neglected. The ploughman “whistles as he goes for
want of thought,” not because nature has failed to spread around him
inexhaustible food for thought, but because his mind has not been trained
to think. By each movement of his ploughshare, page after page, as it
were, is opened to his view of new and interesting matter--and yet he
sees before him nothing but silent and unmeaning clods. By each movement
of his foot he disturbs those pebbles which, speechless to him because he
questions not, return to the interrogations of knowledge wonder-stirring
answers, when asked,