When the man had gained a little knowledge from the thing that he had
found to do and had wearied himself greatly trying to follow the
golden chain, link by link, to the very end, he came, then, to
understand the value of Ignorance. He came to see that success in
working out his dreams depended quite as much upon Ignorance as upon
Knowledge--that, indeed, to know the value of Ignorance is the highest
order of Knowledge.
There are a great many things about this man's life that I do not
know. But that does not matter because most of the things about any
man's life are of little or no importance. That the man came to know
the value of Ignorance was a thing of vast importance to the man and,
therefore, is of importance to my story. Ignorance also is one of the
Thirteen Truly Great Things of Life but only those who have much
knowledge know its value.
A wise Ignorance is rich soil from which the seeds of Knowledge will
bring forth fruit, a hundred fold. "I do not know": this is the
beginning and the end of wisdom. One who has never learned to say: "I
do not know," has not the A B C of education. He who professes to be
educated but will not confess Ignorance is intellectually condemned.
A man who pretends to a knowledge which he has not is like a pygmy
wearing giant's clothing, ridiculous: but he who admits Ignorance is
like a strong knight, clothed in a well fitting suit of mail, ready to
achieve truth.
When a man declares openly his ignorance concerning things of which he
knows but little, the world listens with increased respect when he
speaks of the thing he knows: but when a man claims knowledge of all
things, the world doubts mightily that he knows much of anything, and
accepts questioningly whatever he says of everything.
That which a man does not know harms him not at all, neither does it
harm the world; but that which, through a shallow, foolish,
self-conceit, he professes to know, when he has at best only a half
knowledge, or, in a self destructive vanity, deceives himself into
thinking that he knows, betrays him always to the injury of both
himself and others. An honest Ignorance is a golden vessel, empty,
ready to be filled with wealth but a pretentious or arrogant knowledge
is a vessel so filled with worthless trash that there is no room for
that which is of value.
The world is as full of things to know as it is full of hooks, No man
can hope to read all the books in the world. Selection is enforced by
necessity. So it is in Knowledge. One should not think that, because a
man is ignorant of some things, he is therefore a fool; his ignorance
may be the manifestation of a choice wiser than that of the one who
elects to sit in judgment upon him.
With the passion to know fully aroused; with his mind fretting to
grapple with the problem of Life; and his purpose fired to solve the
riddle of time; the man succeeded in acquiring this: that he must dare
to know little. He came to understand that, while all knowable things
are for all mankind to know, no man can know them all; and that the
wisest men to whom the world pays highest tribute, are the wisest
because they have not attempted to know all, but, recognizing the
value of Ignorance, have dared to remain ignorant of much.
Intellectual giants they are; intellectual babes they are, also. The
man had thought that there was nothing that these men--these wise
ones--did not know. He came to understand that even _he_ knew
some things of which they were ignorant. So his determination to know
all things passed to a determination to know nothing of many things
that he might know more of the things that were most closely
associated with his life and work. He determined to know the most of
the things that, to him, were most vital.
He saw also that he must work out his dreams within the circle of his
own limitations; and that his limitations were not the limitations of
his fellow workers; neither were their limitations his. He did not
know yet just where the outmost circle of his limitations lay but he
knew that it was there and that he must make no mistake when he came
to it. And this, too, is true: just to the degree that the man
recognized his limitations, the circle widened.
Also the man came to understand that there are things knowable and
things unknowable. He came to see that truest wisdom is in this: for
one to spend well his strength on the knowable things and refuse to
dissipate his intellectual vigor upon the unknowable. Not until he
began really to know things was he conscious in any saving degree of
the unknowable. He saw that those who strive always with the
unknowable beat the air in vain and exhaust themselves in their
senseless folly. He saw that to concern oneself wholly with the
unknowable is to rob the world of the things in which are its life. To
meditate much upon the unknowable is an intellectual dissipation that
produces spiritual intoxication and often results in spiritual
delirium tremens. A habitual spiritual drunkard is a nuisance in the
world. The wisdom of Ignorance is in nothing more apparent than in a
clear recognition of the unknowable.
And then the man came to regret knowing some of the things that he
knew. He came, in some things, to wish with all his heart that he had
Ignorance where he had Knowledge. He found that much of the time and
strength that he desired to spend in acquiring the knowledge that
would help him to work out his dreams, he must spend, instead, in
ridding himself of knowledge that he had already acquired. He learned
that to forget is quite as necessary as to remember and very often
much more difficult. Young he was, and strong he was, but, already, he
felt the dragging power of the things he would have been better for
not knowing--the things he desired to forget. They were very little
things in comparison to the things that in the future he would wish to
forget; but to him, at this time, they did not seem small. So it was
that, in his effort to acquire Knowledge, the man began to strive also
for Ignorance.
I do not know what it was that the man had learned that he desired to
forget. My story is not the kind of a story that tells those things. I
know, only, that for him to forget was imperative. I know, only, that
had he held fast to Ignorance in some things of which he had gained
knowledge, it would have been better. For him in some things Ignorance
would have been the truest wisdom. Ignorance would have helped him to
work out his dreams when Knowledge only hindered by forcing him to
spend much time striving to forget. Those who know too much of evil
find it extremely difficult to gain knowledge of the good. Those who
know too much of the false find it very hard to recognize the true. A
too great knowledge of things that are wrong makes it almost
impossible for one to believe in that which is right. Ignorance,
rightly understood, is, indeed, one of the Thirteen Truly Great Things
of Life.
And then this man, in learning the value of Ignorance, came perilously
near believing that no man could _know_ anything. He came
dangerously near the belief that Knowledge is all a mirage toward
which men journey hopelessly; a phantom to be grasped by no hand; a
will-o'-the-wisp to be followed here and there but leading nowhere.
He, for a little, said that Ignorance is the truest wisdom. He
believed, for a time, that to say always: "I do not know," is the
height of all intelligence. One by one, he saw his intellectual idols
fall in the dust of the commonplace. Little by little, he discovered
that the intellectual masters he had served were themselves only
servants. His intellectual Gods, he found to be men like himself. And
so, for a while, he said: "We can know nothing. We can only think that
we know. We can only pretend to know. There _is_ no real
Knowledge but only Ignorance. Ignorance should be exalted. In
Ignorance lies peace, contentment, happiness, and safety." Even of his
work--of his dreams he said this. He said: "It is no use." To the very
edge of this pit he came but he did not fall in.
To accept the fact of the unknowable without losing his faith in the
knowable: to recognize the unknown without losing in the least his
grip upon the known: to find the Knowledge of Yesterday becoming the
Ignorance of to-day and still hold fast to the Knowledge of the
present; to watch his intellectual leaders dropping to the rear and to
follow as bravely those who were still in the front: to see his
intellectual heroes fall and his intellectual idols crumbling in the
dust and still to keep burning the fire of his enthusiasm: to find
Knowledge so often a curse and Ignorance a blessing and still to
desire Knowledge: all this, the man learned that he must do if he
would work out his dreams. That which saved the man from the pit of
hopeless disbelief in everything and helped him to a clear
understanding of Ignorance, was this: he went back again into his
Yesterdays.
From sheltered fence corners and hidden woodland hollows, from the lee
of high banks, and along the hedge in the garden, the last worn and
ragged remnant of winter's garment was gone. The brook in the valley,
below the little girl's house, had broken the last of its fetters and
was rejoicing boisterously in its freedom. The meadow and pasture
lands showed the tender green of the first grass life. Pussy willow
buds were swelling and over the orchard and the wood a filmy veil of
summer color was dropped as though by fairy hands. In the cherry tree,
a pair of brown birds, just returning from their southern home, were
discussing the merits of the nearby hedge as a building site: the
madam bird insisting, as women will, that the beautiful traditions of
the spot made it, for home building, peculiarly desirable. It was a
well known fact, said she, that brown birds had builded there for no
one knows how many ages. Even in the far away city, the man felt the
season in the air. The reek of city odors could not altogether drown
the subtle perfume that betrayed the near presence of the spring. As
though the magic of the budding, sprouting, starting, time of the year
placed him under its spell, the man went back to the springtime of his
life--back into his Yesterdays.
Once again, he walked under the clear skies of childhood. Once again,
he lived in the blessed, blessed, days when he had nothing to
forget--when his mind and life were as a mountain brook that, clear
and pure, from the spring of its birth runs ever onward, outward,
turning never back, pausing never to form stagnant, poisonous, pools.
And there it was--in his Yesterdays--in the pure sunlight of
childhood--that he found new intellectual faith--that he came to a
right understanding of the real wisdom of Ignorance.
The intellectual giants of his Yesterdays--those wise ones upon whose
learning he looked with childish awe--who were they? Famous scholars
who lectured in caps and gowns and words of many syllables upon themes
of mighty interest to themselves? Students who, in their laboratory
worlds, discovered many wonderful things that were not so and solved
many puzzling problems with solutions that were right and entirely
satisfactory until the next graduating class discovered them to be all
wrong and no solution at all? Great religious leaders who were
supernaturally called, divinely commissioned, and armed with holy
authority to point out the true and only way of life until some other
with the same call, commission, and authority, pointed out a wholly
different true and only way? Great statesmen upon whose knowledge and
leadership the salvation of the nation depended, until the next
election discovered them to be foolish puppets of a dishonest and
corrupt party and put new leaders in their places to save the nation
with a new brand of political salvation, the chief value of which was
its newness? No indeed! Such as these were not the intellectual giants
of the man's Yesterdays. The heights of knowledge in those days were
held by others than these.
One of the very highest peaks in the whole mountain range of learning,
in the Yesterdays, was held by the hired man. Again, at chore time,
the boy followed this wise one about the stables and the barn,
watching, from a safe position near the door, while the horses were
groomed and bedded down for the night. Again the pungent odors from
the stalls, the scent of the straw and the hay in the loft, the smell
of harness leather damp with sweat was in his nostrils and in his
ears, the soft swish of switching tails, the thud of stamping hoofs,
the contented munching of grain, the rustle of hay, with now and then
a low whinny or an angry squeal. And fearlessly to and fro in this
strange world moved the hired man. In and out among the horses he
passed, perfectly at home in the stalls, seeming to share the most
intimate secrets of the horse life.
Everything that there was to know about a horse, confidently thought
the little boy, this wonderful man knew. The very language that he
used when talking about horses was a language full of strange, hard,
words, the meaning of which was hidden from the childish worshiper of
wisdom. Such words as "ringbone" and "spavin" and "heaves" and
"stringhalt" and "pastern" and "stifle" and "wethers" and "girth" and
"hock," to the boy, seemed to establish, beyond all question, the
intellectual greatness of the one who used them just as words of many
syllables sometimes fix for older children the position on the
intellectual heights of those who use them. "Chiaroscuro,"
"cheiropterous," "eschatology," and the "unearned increment"--who, in
the common, every day, grown up, world, would dare question the
artistic, scientific, religious, or political, knowledge of one who
could talk like that?
Nor did the intellectual strength of this wise one of the Yesterdays
exhaust itself with the scientific knowledge of horses. He was equally
at home in the co-ordinate sciences of cows and pigs and chickens.
Again the boy stood in the cow shed laboratory and watched, with
childish wonder, the demonstration of the master's superior wisdom as
the white streams poured into the tinkling milk pail. How did he do
it--wondered the boy--where did this wizard in overalls and hickory
shirt and tattered straw hat acquire his marvelous scientific skill?
In the garden, the orchard, or the field, it was the same. No secret
of nature was hidden from this learned one. He knew whether potatoes
should be planted in the dark or light of the moon: whether next
winter would be "close" or "open": whether the coming season would be
"early" or "late": whether next summer would be "wet" or "dry." Always
he could tell, days ahead, whether it would rain or if the weather
would be fair. With a peach tree twig he could tell where to dig for
water. By many signs he could say whether luck would be good or bad.
Small wonder that the boy felt very ignorant, very humble, in the
presence of this wise one!
Then, one day, the boy, to his amazement, learned that this wizard of
the barnyard knew nothing at all about fairies. Common, every day,
knowledge was this knowledge of fairies to the boy: but the wise one
knew nothing about them. So dense was his ignorance that he even
seemed to doubt and smiled an incredulous smile when the boy tried to
enlighten him.
It was a great day in his Yesterdays when the boy discovered that the
hired man did not know about fairies.
As the years passed and the time approached when the boy was to become
a man, he learned the meaning of many words that were as strange to
the intellectual hero of his childhood as the language of that
companion of horses had once been strange to him. In time, much of the
knowledge of that barnyard sage became, to the boy, even as the boy's
knowledge of fairies had been to the man. Still--still--it was a great
day in his Yesterdays when the boy discovered that the hired man did
not know about fairies. Perhaps, though, it was just as well that the
hired man did not know. If he had become too familiar with the
fairies, his potatoes might not have been planted either in the light
or the dark of the moon and the world's potatoes must be planted
somehow.
Equally great in his special field of knowledge was the old, white
haired, negro who lived in a tiny cabin just a little way over the
hill. Strange and awful were the things that _he_ knew about the
fearsome, supernatural, creatures, that lived and moved in the unseen
world. Of "hants" and "spirits" and "witches" and "hoodoos" he told the
boy with such earnest confidence and so convincing a manner that to
doubt was impossible. In the unknowable world, the old negro moved
with authority unquestioned, with piety above criticism, with a
religious zeal of such warmth that the boy was often moved by the old
man's wisdom and goodness to go to him with offerings from mother's
pantry.
And then, one day, the boy discovered that this wonderfully wise one
could neither read nor write. Everybody that the boy knew, in the
grown up world, could read and write. The boy himself could even read
"cat" and "rat" and "dog." Vaguely the boy wondered, even then, if the
old black saint's lack of those commonplace accomplishments accounted,
in any way, for his marvelous knowledge of the unseen world.
And father--father--was the greatest, the wisest, and the best man
that ever lived. The boy wondered, sometimes, why the Bible did not
tell about his father. Surely, in all the world, there was no other
man so good as he. And, as for wisdom! There was nothing--nothing--that
father did not know! Always, when other men came to see them,
there was talk of such strange things as "government" and "party"
and "campaigns" and "senators" and "congressmen"--things that the boy
did not in the least know about--but he knew that his father knew,
which was quite enough, indeed, for a boy of his age to know.
The boy, in his Yesterdays, wondered greatly when he heard his father
sometimes wish that he could be a boy again. To him, in the ignorance
of his childhood, such a wish was very strange. Not until the boy had
himself become a man and had learned to rightly value Ignorance did he
understand his father's wish and in his heart repeat it.
But there was one in those Yesterdays, upon whose knowledge the boy
looked in admiring awe, who taught him that which he could never
outgrow. Very different from the wisdom of the hired man was the
wisdom of this one. Very different was his knowledge from the
knowledge of the old negro. Nor was his learning like, in any way, to
the learning that made the boy's father so good and so wise among men.
But this leader did not often come openly to the boy's home. Always,
when his mother saw the boy in the company of this one, she called him
into the house, and often she explained to him that the one whom he so
admired was a bad boy and that she did not wish her little son to play
with him. So this intellectual leader of the Yesterdays was forced to
come, stealthily, through the orchard, dodging from tree to tree,
until, from behind the woodshed, he could, with a low whistle, attract
the attention of his admiring disciple and beckon him to his side.
Then the two would slip away over the brow of the hill or down behind
the barn where, safe from mother's watchful eye, the boy could enjoy
the companionship of this one whom Knowledge had so distinguished.
And often the older boy laughed at the Ignorance of his younger
companion--laughed and sneered at him in the pride of superior
learning--while the little boy felt ashamed and, filled with
admiration for his forbidden friend, wondered if he would ever grow to
be as wise. Scarcely could he hope, for instance, to be able, ever, to
smoke and chew and swear in so masterful a way. And the little
learner's face would beam with timid adoration and envy as he listened
to the tales of wicked adventures so boastfully related by his
teacher. Would he, could he, ever be so bold, so wise in knowledge of
the world?
Poor little boy in the Yesterdays who knew nothing of the value of
Ignorance! Poor boys in the grown up world--admiring and envying those
who know more of evil than themselves!
So, always, secretly, the boy, as the years passed, gained the
knowledge that makes men wish that they could be boys again. So,
always, do men learn the value of Ignorance too late.
And then, as the man lived again in his Yesterdays, and, realizing in
his manhood the value of Ignorance, wished that he could be a boy
again, the little girl came to take her place in his intellectual life
even as she took her place in all the life of his boyhood. Again he
saw her wondering eyes as she stood with him in the stable door to
watch the hired man among the horses. Again he felt her timid hand in
his as he led her to a place where, safe from horns and heels, they
could observe, together, the fascinating operation of milking.
Together they listened to the words of strange wisdom and marveled at
the knowledge of the barnyard scientist.
All that the boy learned from the old negro, of the fearsome creatures
that inhabit the unseen world, he, in turn, gave to the little girl.
And sometimes she even went with him on a pilgrimage to the cabin over
the hill; there to gaze, half frightened, at the black-faced seer who
had such store of awful wisdom.
The boy's pride in his father's superior goodness and wisdom she
shared fully--because he was the father of the boy.
All the sweet lore of childhood was theirs in common. All the wise
Ignorance of his Yesterdays she shared.
Only in the boy's forbidden friendship with that one who had such
knowledge of evil the little girl did not share. This knowledge--the
knowledge that was to go with him, even in his manhood years, and
which, at last, would teach him the real value of Ignorance--the boy
gained alone. Sadly, the man remembered how, sometimes, when the boy
had stolen away to drink at that first muddy fountain of evil, he
would hear her calling and would be held from answering by the jeers
of his wicked teacher. But never when he was playing with the little
girl did the boy answer the signal whistle of that one whose knowledge
he envied but of whose friendship he was ashamed.
In his Yesterdays, the ignorance of his little girl mate was an anchor
that held the boy from drifting too far in the current of evil. In his
Yesterdays, the goodness and wisdom of his father was not a
will-o'-the-wisp but, to the boy, a steady guiding light. What
mattered, then, if the knowledge of the old negro _was_ but a
foolish mirage? What mattered if the hired man did _not_ know
about fairies or if he _did_ know so many things that were not
so? So it was that the man came to know the value of Ignorance. So it
was that the man did not fall into the pit of saying: "There is only
Ignorance."
And so it was, as he returned again from his Yesterdays, that day when
even the reeking atmosphere of the city could not hide, altogether,
the sweetness of the spring, that the memory of the little girl was
with him even as the perfume of the season was in the air.
* * * * *
It was the time of the first flowers.
The woman had been out, somewhere, on a business errand and was
returning to the place where she worked. A crowd had gathered,
blocking the sidewalk, and she was forced to stop. Quickly, as if by
magic, the people came running from all directions. The woman was
annoyed. Her destination was only a few doors away and she had much
work, still, to do before the remaining hours of the afternoon should
be gone. She could not cross the street without going back for the
traffic was very heavy. She faced about as if to retrace her steps,
then, paused and turned again. The street would be open in a moment.
It would be better to wait. Above the heads of the people she could
see, already, the helmets of the police clearing the sidewalk. Pushing
into the jam, she worked slowly forward.
Clang, clang, clang, with a rattle and clatter and crash, a patrol
wagon swung up to the curb--so close that a spatter of mud from the
gutter fell on the woman's skirt. The wagon wheeled and backed. The
police formed a quick lane across the sidewalk. The crowd surged
forward and carried the woman close against the blue coated barrier.
Down the lane held by the officers of the law, so close to the woman
that she could have touched them, came two poor creatures who were not
ignorant of what is commonly called the world. They had seen life--so
the world would have said. They were wise. They had knowledge of many
things of which the woman, who shrank back from them in horror, knew
nothing. Their haggard, painted, faces, their disheveled hair, their
tawdry clothing, false jewels, and drunken blasphemies, drew a laugh
from the crowd.
Upon the soul of the woman the laughter of the crowd fell like a demon
laugh from the depths of hell. Almost she shrieked aloud her protest.
Because she knew herself to be a woman, she almost shrieked aloud.
It was over in an instant. The patrol wagon rumbled away with its
burden of woe. The crowd melted as magically as it had gathered. At
the entrance of the building where she worked, the woman turned to
look back, as though fascinated by the horror of that which she had
seen. But, upon the surface of that sea of life, there was not the
faintest ripple to mark the spot of the tragedy.
And the crowd had laughed.
The woman knew the character of that place so near the building in
which she worked. Several times, each day, she passed the swinging
doors of the saloon below and, always, she saw men going in and out.
Many times she had caught glimpses of the faces of those who occupied
the rooms above as they watched at the windows. When first she went to
work she had known little of such things, but she was learning. Not
because she wished to learn but because she could not help it. But the
knowledge of such things had come to her so gradually that she had
grown accustomed to knowing even as she came to know. She had become
familiar with the fact without being forced to feel.
Perhaps, if the incident had occurred a few years later, when the
woman's knowledge was more complete, she, herself, might have been
able to laugh with the crowd. This knowledge that enables one so to
laugh is, seemingly, much prized these days among those who have not
the wisdom to value Ignorance.
The afternoon passed, as such afternoons must, and the woman did her
work. What mattered the work that was being wrought in the soul of her
womanhood--the work committed to her hands--the work that refused to
recognize her womanhood--_that_ work was done--and that is all
that seems to matter. And, when her day's work was done, the woman
boarded a car for her home.
It was an hour when many hundreds of toilers were going from their
labor. So many hundreds there were that the cars could scarcely hold
them and there were seats for only a few. Among those hundreds there
were many who were proud of their knowledge of life. There were not
many who knew the value of Ignorance. The woman who knew that she was
a woman was crowded in a car where there was scarcely room for her to
stand. She felt the rude touch of strangers--felt the bodies of
strange men forced against her body--felt their limbs crushed against
her limbs--felt their breath in her face--felt and trembled in
frightened shame. In that car, crowded close against the woman, there
were men whose knowledge of life was very great. By going to the
lowest depths of the city's shame, where the foulest dregs of humanity
settle, they had acquired that knowledge.
At first the woman had dreaded those evening trips from work in the
crowded cars. But it was an everyday experience and she was becoming
accustomed to it. She was learning not to mind. That is the horror of
it--_she was learning not to mind._
But this night it was different. The heart of her womanhood shrank
within her trembling and afraid--cried out within her in protest at
the outrage. In the fetid atmosphere of the crowded car; in the rough
touch of the crushing bodies of sweating humanity; in the coarse, low,
jest; she felt again the demon that she had heard in the laughter of
the crowd. She saw again the horror of that which had leered at her
from out the disfigured, drunken, faces of the poor creatures taken by
the police.
Must she--must she learn to laugh that laugh with the crowd? Must she
gain knowledge of the unclean, the vicious, the degrading things of
life by actual contact? Was it not enough for her to know that those
things were in the world as she knew that there was fever in the marsh
lands; or must she go in person into the muck and mire of the swamps?
So it was that this woman, who knew herself to be a woman, did not
crave Knowledge, but Ignorance. She prayed to be kept from knowing too
much. And it was well for her so to pray. It was the highest wisdom.
Because she knew her womanhood, she was afraid. She feared for her
dream life that was to be beyond the old, old, door. She feared for
that one who, perhaps, would come to cross with her the threshold for
it was given this woman to know that only with one in whose purity of
life she believed could she ever enter into the life of her dreams.
The Master of Life, in His infinite wisdom, made the heart of
womanhood divinely selfish. This woman knew that her dreams could
never be for her save through her belief in the one who should ask her
to go with him through that old, old, door. And the things that the
woman found herself learning made it hard for her to believe in any
man. The knowledge that was forced upon her was breeding doubt and
distrust and denial of good. The realization of her womanhood's
beautiful dream was possible only through wise Ignorance. She must
fight to keep from learning too much.
And in the woman's fight there was this to help her: in the crowd that
had laughed, her startled eyes had seen one or two who did not
laugh--one or two there were whose faces were filled with pity and
with shame. Always, in the crowded cars, there was some one who tried
quietly to shield her from the press--some one who seemed to
understand. It was this that helped. These men who knew the value of
Ignorance kept the spark of her faith in men alive. The faith, without
which her dreams would be idle dreams, impossible of fulfillment, was
kept for her by those men who knew the value of Ignorance.
The woman went to her work the next morning with a heart that was
heavy with dread and nerves that were quivering with fear. The
brightness, the beauty, and the joy, of her womanhood, she felt to be
going from her as the sunshine goes under threatening clouds. The
blackness, the ugliness, and the sorrow, of life, she felt coming over
her as fog rolls in from the sea. The faith, trust, and hope, that is
the soul of womanhood was threatened by doubt, distrust, and despair.
The gentleness, sensitiveness, and delicacy, that is the heart of
womanhood was beset by coarseness, vulgarity, and rudeness. Could she
harden her woman heart, steel her woman nerves, and make coarse her
woman soul to withstand the things that she was forced to meet and
know? And if she could--what then--would she gain or lose thereby? For
the life of which she had dreamed, would she gain or lose?