PARSON.--"You take for your motto this aphorism, 'Knowledge is Power.'
--BACON."
RICCABOCCA.--"Bacon make such an aphorism! The last man in the world to
have said anything so pert and so shallow!"
LEONARD (astonished).--"Do you mean to say, sir, that that aphorism is
not in Lord Bacon? Why, I have seen it quoted as his in almost every
newspaper, and in almost every speech in favour of popular education."
RICCABOCCA.--"Then that should be a warning to you never again to fall
into the error of the would-be scholar,--
[This aphorism has been probably assigned to Lord Bacon upon the
mere authority of the index to his works. It is the aphorism of the
index-maker, certainly not of the great master of inductive
philosophy. Bacon has, it is true, repeatedly dwelt on the power of
knowledge, but with so many explanations and distinctions that
nothing could be more unjust to his general meaning than the attempt
to cramp into a sentence what it costs him a volume to define.
Thus, if on one page he appears to confound knowledge with power, in
another he sets them in the strongest antithesis to each other; as
follows "Adeo signanter Deus opera potentix et sapientive
discriminavit." But it would be as unfair to Bacon to convert into
an aphorism the sentence that discriminates between knowledge and
power as it is to convert into an aphorism any sentence that
confounds them.]
namely, quote second-hand. Lord Bacon wrote a great book to show in what
knowledge is power, how that power should be defined, in what it might be
mistaken. And, pray, do you think so sensible a man ever would have
taken the trouble to write a great book upon the subject, if he could
have packed up all he had to say into the portable dogma, 'Knowledge is
power'? Pooh! no such aphorism is to be found in Bacon from the first
page of his writings to the last."
PARSON (candidly).--"Well, I supposed it was Lord Bacon's, and I am
very glad to hear that the aphorism has not the sanction of his
authority."
LEONARD (recovering his surprise).--"But why so?"
PARSON.--"Because it either says a great deal too much, or just--nothing
at all."
LEONARD.--"At least, sir, it seems to me undeniable."
PARSON.--"Well, grant that it is undeniable. Does it prove much in
favour of knowledge? Pray, is not ignorance power too?"
RICCABOCCA.--"And a power that has had much the best end of the quarter-
staff."
PARSON.--"All evil is power, and does its power make it anything the
better?"
RICCABOCCA.--"Fanaticism is power,--and a power that has often swept away
knowledge like a whirlwind. The Mussulman burns the library of a world,
and forces the Koran and the sword from the schools of Byzantium to the
colleges of Hindostan."
PARSON (bearing on with a new column of illustration).--"Hunger is power.
The barbarians, starved out of their forests by their own swarming
population, swept into Italy and annihilated letters. The Romans,
however degraded, had more knowledge at least than the Gaul and the
Visigoth."
RICCABOCCA (bringing up the reserve).--"And even in Greece, when Greek
met Greek, the Athenians--our masters in all knowledge--were beat by the
Spartans, who held learning in contempt."
PARSON.--"Wherefore you see, Leonard, that though knowledge be power, it
is only one of the powers of the world; that there are others as strong,
and often much stronger; and the assertion either means but a barren
truism, not worth so frequent a repetition, or it means something that
you would find it very difficult to prove."
LEONARD.---"One nation may be beaten by another that has more physical
strength and more military discipline; which last, permit me to say, sir,
is a species of knowledge--"
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 class. 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 class 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 nobody 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 class of men which has less
actual influence on public affairs. These scholars have more knowledge
than manufacturers and shipowners, 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 class 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
aptitude for learning will still know the most. Nay, by a very natural
law, the more general the appetite for knowledge, the more the increased
competition will favour those most adapted to excel by circumstance 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
passed 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 class increase in knowledge, so do the other classes; and if the
working class 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 assertion 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 passions 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-
worship. 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 god. 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 mass 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
assume as the concomitants of the gift? See Bacon himself: what black
ingratitude! 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 shield,--a shield that you will not
even allow to be silver. And, oh, if you thus speak of knowledge, why
have you encouraged me to know?"