It is asserted that this is the age of Superficial Knowledge; and amongst
the proofs of this assertion we find Encyclopaedias and other popular
abstracts of knowledge particularly insisted on. But in this notion and
its alleged proofs there is equal error--wherever there is much diffusion
of knowledge, there must be a good deal of superficiality: prodigious
_extension_ implies a due proportion of weak _intension_; a sea-like
expansion of knowledge will cover large shallows as well as large
depths. But in that quarter in which it is superficially cultivated the
intellect of this age is properly opposed in any just comparison to an
intellect without any culture at all:--leaving the deep soils out of the
comparison, the shallow ones of the present day would in any preceding one
have been barren wastes. Of this our modern encyclopedias are the best
proof. For whom are they designed, and by whom used?--By those who in a
former age would have gone to the fountain heads? No, but by those who in
any age preceding the present would have drunk at no waters at all.
Encyclopedias are the growth of the last hundred years; not because those
who were formerly students of higher learning have descended, but because
those who were below encyclopaedias have ascended. The greatness of the
ascent is marked by the style in which the more recent encyclopaedias are
executed: at first they were mere abstracts of existing books--well or ill
executed: at present they contain many _original_ articles of great
merit. As in the periodical literature of the age, so in the
encyclopaedias it has become a matter of ambition with the publishers to
retain the most eminent writers in each several department. And hence it
is that our encyclopaedias now display one characteristic of this age--the
very opposite of superficiality (and which on other grounds we are well
assured of)--viz. its tendency in science, no less than in other
applications of industry, to extreme subdivision. In all the employments
which are dependent in any degree upon the political economy of nations,
this tendency is too obvious to have been overlooked. Accordingly it has
long been noticed for congratulation in manufactures and the useful arts--
and for censure in the learned professions. We have now, it is alleged, no
great and comprehensive lawyers like Coke: and the study of medicine is
subdividing itself into a distinct ministry (as it were) not merely upon
the several organs of the body (oculists, aurists, dentists,
cheiropodists, &c.) but almost upon the several diseases of the same
organ: one man is distinguished for the treatment of liver complaints of
one class--a second for those of another class; one man for asthma--
another for phthisis; and so on. As to the law, the evil (if it be one)
lies in the complex state of society which of necessity makes the laws
complex: law itself is become unwieldy and beyond the grasp of one man's
term of life and possible range of experience: and will never again come
within them. With respect to medicine, the case is no evil but a great
benefit--so long as the subdividing principle does not descend too low to
allow of a perpetual re-ascent into the generalizing principle (the
[Greek: _to_] commune) which secures the unity of the science. In
ancient times all the evil of such a subdivision was no doubt realized in
Egypt: for there a distinct body of professors took charge of each organ
of the body, not (as we may be assured) from any progress of the science
outgrowing the time and attention of the general professor, but simply
from an ignorance of the organic structure of the human body and the
reciprocal action of the whole upon each part and the parts upon the
whole; an ignorance of the same kind which has led sailors seriously (and
not merely, as may sometimes have happened, by way of joke) to reserve one
ulcerated leg to their own management, whilst the other was given up to
the management of the surgeon. With respect to law and medicine then, the
difference between ourselves and our ancestors is not subjective but
objective; not, _i.e._ in our faculties who study them, but in the
things themselves which are the objects of study: not we (the students)
are grown less, but they (the studies) are grown bigger;--and that our
ancestors did not subdivide as much as we do--was something of their luck,
but no part of their merit. Simply as subdividers therefore to the extent
which now prevails, we are less superficial than any former age. In all
parts of science the same principle of subdivision holds: here therefore,
no less than in those parts of knowledge which are the subjects of
distinct civil professions, we are of necessity more profound than our
ancestors; but, for the same reason, less comprehensive than they. Is it
better to be a profound student, or a comprehensive one? In some degree
this must depend upon the direction of the studies: but generally, I
think, it is better for the interests of knowledge that the scholar should
aim at profundity, and better for the interests of the individual that he
should aim at comprehensiveness. A due balance and equilibrium of the mind
is but preserved by a large and multiform knowledge: but knowledge itself
is but served by an exclusive (or at least paramount) dedication of one
mind to one science. The first proposition is perhaps unconditionally
true: but the second with some limitations. There are such people as
Leibnitzes on this earth; and their office seems not that of planets--to
revolve within the limits of one system, but that of comets (according to
the theory of some speculators)--to connect different systems together. No
doubt there is much truth in this: a few Leibnitzes in every age would be
of much use: but neither are many men fitted by nature for the part of
Leibnitz; nor would the aspect of knowledge be better, if they were. We
should then have a state of Grecian life amongst us in which every man
individually would attain in a moderate degree all the purposes of the
sane understanding,--but in which all the purposes of the sane
understanding would be but moderately attained. What I mean is this:--let
all the objects of the understanding in civil life or in science be
represented by the letters of the alphabet; in Grecian life each man would
separately go through all the letters in a tolerable way; whereas at
present each letter is served by a distinct body of men. Consequently the
Grecian individual is superior to the modern; but the Grecian whole is
inferior: for the whole is made up of the individuals; and the Grecian
individual repeats himself. Whereas in modern life the whole derives its
superiority from the very circumstances which constitute the inferiority
of the parts; for modern life is _cast_ dramatically: and the difference
is as between an army consisting of soldiers who should each individually
be competent to go through the duties of a dragoon--of a hussar--of a
sharp-shooter--of an artillery-man--of a pioneer, &c. and an army on its
present composition, where the very inferiority of the soldier as an
individual--his inferiority in compass and versatility of power and
knowledge--is the very ground from which the army derives its superiority
as a whole, viz. because it is the condition of the possibility of a total
surrender of the individual to one exclusive pursuit. In science
therefore, and (to speak more generally) in the whole evolution of the
human faculties, no less than in Political Economy, the progress of
society brings with it a necessity of sacrificing the ideal of what is
excellent for the individual, to the ideal of what is excellent for the
whole. We need therefore not trouble ourselves (except as a speculative
question) with the comparison of the two states; because, as a practical
question, it is precluded by the overruling tendencies of the age--which
no man could counteract except in his own single case, _i.e._ by refusing
to adapt himself as a part to the whole, and thus foregoing the advantages
of either one state or the other. [1]