When a person feels he knows a thing or two which other people have
been too stupid to discover, he is a wise person. Then a feeling comes
to him--a kind of a desire to enlighten the public concerning the
things they do not know; incidentally--how smart he is.
The public, also desiring to be wise, facilitates the spreading of that
which the wise know, by establishing schools, colleges, universities,
and academies, and by instituting lecture courses. The choicest method
with which to unload wisdom is by the book route. Endowments are
secured for public libraries, book stores are opened, and publishing
houses grind out the wisdom of the wise. If your name is inscribed on
a book-cover you are then officially wise and are eligible to be a
bohemian. It gives you a license to get drunk, to borrow money, and
to be a free lover. There are only two other classes that are lucky
enough to be equal to the book-writer and also enjoy the privileges of
bohemianism--they are the actors and painters. All are included under
the name of “Artist.” The politician also claims the privilege, but he
really is not entitled to it.
There is much wisdom in the world. In order to have even a slight
comprehension of the extent of it, visit the public and private
libraries and see the heavy laden shelves. Then let a publisher tell
you the percentage of the manuscripts which are not printed, add them,
and multiply the result by ten thousand; it is doubtful if even then
you will be anywhere near the mark.
When I discovered that I was awfully smart I decided to unload my
wisdom on the public in the shape of a book. I know that I am wise, yet
I am modest. I do not think that I am so wise as the other wise people
think they are; but many facts presented themselves to convince me that
I am smarter than the wise people I meet. They are specialists; they
are up on one line, and they talk and write about that particular line.
If you ask a person who has written a book on economics, concerning
art, he will tell you that in economics he knows it all; as for
art--you will have to go elsewhere. You will rarely find a person who
will admit that he is wise in more than one thing. But I confess that
I am the proud possessor of a department storehouse of wisdom where
you can find any subject you may desire. Another point which I have
discovered in my favor is that their knowledge is not absolute. When
a person places before you the fact that he is wise you can generally
find another wise man who will prove that the facts produced by the
other fellow are not facts at all; and that number two is the one who
has the wisdom which you thought number one had; then you are likely to
hear number three contradict number two, and he in turn asks for the
applause to which wisdom is entitled.
By the discovery of old fossils a system of physical geography is
established. By the discovery of some more fossils we overturn that
system and establish another. This morning I read that more fossils
have been discovered, which means that we are wrong again. I am
convinced that there are any number of old fossils that are walking
around everywhere; and from this I conclude that wrongness is universal.
The knowledge which I possess is absolute, and of such a character
that any number of fossils are not capable of upsetting it. The
most important point which I discovered in my favor, and not to be
overlooked is, that the wise do not transfer to others the knowledge
which they claim to possess. Therefore it seems to me that the value of
what they claim to possess is overestimated.
An artisan, when he knows how to make something, it matters not what
it is, can transfer to you that which he knows. Then you too become
the possessor of that knowledge. A farmer can teach you how to farm, a
shoe-maker who knows how to make shoes can transfer his knowledge to
you; then you know how, and in turn can teach others, so they too are
able to make shoes. But suppose you are anxious to know something about
spiritualism, theosophy, or any other thing that would come under the
name of “religion”--occult, psychic, or cosmic. It requires a lifetime
to read the books on those subjects. After reading them through you
possess the knowledge that the writer of them claims that he knows
something concerning something which he calls by a certain name; but
you don’t know the something, neither do you know what the something
he claims to know is; neither do you know that he actually knows the
things he claims he knows. After all, you have only his statement that
he knows. The same is also true of all the sciences and everything
which would come under the name of wisdom. They cannot transfer their
knowledge to you.
The critic who writes and talks about art asks us to reverence him;
not for the thing he makes us know--he cannot do that. He wants us to
appreciate him for the something which he claims he possesses and which
we lack; and for the life of us we cannot comprehend what it is that
we lack. When the musical critic tells us about the atmosphere and the
lights and the shadows of the “Aria” sung by the great barytone, or
when the great critic tells us about the sharps, flats, half-notes,
and symphony which he discovered in the beautiful pictures, he has not
transferred his beautiful knowledge to us. We only stand before him
with bared heads and admire his cleverness; but he has not wisdomized
us; we did not get smart by hearing his discourse. The more we hear him
the smarter he appears to us, and the “foolisher” we feel we are.
A critic (after confessing to him that I did not know a thing he was
talking about), thinking to pacify me, once said: “Don’t despair, you
will yet cultivate an appreciation of art.” And I wonder if the people
who have cultivated a taste for olives are any happier than I who
cannot relish them. If wisdom is great from the fact that it satisfies
a craving for a cultivated desire and not a natural one, then why not
cultivate the itch for the pleasure of scratching yourself?
I have tapped the thought-waves which radiate from the greatest minds
of the world--the ones living as well as the ones who have gone before,
and the ones who are yet to come--and it does not satisfy me. I went
to see Bernard Shaw’s Candida, and while I agree with him that there
is plenty of love in the world, it is not true that the reason it is
manifestless is because of its shyness. My heart tells me that the
world’s knowledge stands in the way of the world’s love. It is the
people who know that make it hard for the people who don’t know, but
who feel.
There are people who know things, and they know them because it has
been told them by their teachers and their parents, and they have
records of the same from men of the past; and the people who have made
the records know it to be so because they were told by their teachers
and their parents, who heard it from their teachers and their parents;
and these last will in turn impart it to their children and their
pupils, that they may know the antiquities. They have the records
carved in stone to prove that what they say is true. They are the wise.
They are the people who deal in well-established houses which have
stood the test of time; they are the ones who will not risk being taken
in or swindled.
They buy old paintings, old books, old furniture,--buy them because
they are old and therefore must be good. When they purchase anything
modern it is done only after long discussion and on the judgment of the
critics--who know all things.
When they give anything to charity it must be the old and well
established. They are the foremost in charity balls, church fairs,
and subscriptions for the Red Cross Society. If they give you a
subscription for something untried and new, they will give it to you
only on the indorsement of so many other names. They will say, “I will
subscribe if you will get twenty other influential people to do the
same.” They are always afraid to be alone in a thing--always want to
be with the crowd. They are very careful of their actions; it might
hurt their social position. In the world of ideas they get the oldest
ones--and the older the better; and they will surely be angry with you
if you disturb any of their ideas.
I know that I don’t know a thing, and this knowledge is so rooted
within me and absolute that even when a number of the wise tried to
teach me something, I found after they were through with me, that they
did not succeed in convincing me that I know any more than I did
before they started to educate me; although they did convince me that
they themselves not only know nothing, but are unreasonable as well;
for it stands to reason that when a person asserts that a certain
thing exists, he should furnish proof when called upon that the thing
he says exists, really exists. When a man claims that he has certain
knowledge on a certain subject, and on the strength of this knowledge
he wishes to be considered wise, he ought to be ready at any time to
produce evidence that he is actually the possessor of that knowledge.
And so, thought I, when I asked them for proof, that they would gladly
furnish it. But they fooled me; which, of course is proof that they are
fools. Does it not take a galvanizer to galvanize; a wisdomite with a
stock of wisdom to wisdomize you? So it takes a fool well supplied with
foolishness to fool you. They asked me to prove that they didn’t know
the thing they claimed to know. While their reasoning is illogical,
still it is logical, because it takes a person who knows that he knows
not to impart that knowledge to others; and they in turn know not.
I am an expert in my line. I am awfully proud of the knowledge I
possess; it is concrete--I can transfer it. After I tell you, you too,
as well as I, know what I know; therefore I can be independent with
what I know. I do not have to ask you to come to me before you go
elsewhere; the fact is, I urge you to go the rounds before you come to
me. After you have swallowed all the others can supply, and consider
yourself wise, then if you come to me, I will examine you and let you
show me what it is that you claim to know.
That I know that I do not know, no one is disputing. That I know
nothing is granted. The disputed point is your claim that you know
something; which, of course, is not true. You have simply forgotten
that you do not know; and with my convincing knowledge that I do not
know, I transfer that knowledge to you, by asking you to forget that
you have forgotten that you do not know; which is equivalent to still
not knowing. Here is where we stand: I don’t know anything about
anything, and I know that I don’t know. My discussions, therefore, are
about things I don’t know; and as I don’t know anything, therefore I
can discuss anything. You also don’t know anything, but you think that
you know something, which you discuss; therefore, you are limited to
the thing which you think you know. But in reality you also don’t know
anything and as all of us do not know anything, our system of life,
which is based on knowledge, is faulty, because we have no knowledge to
build it on.
Come, let us reason together. How I got here I don’t know! What I am
here for I don’t know! Why I should not love everything my love wants
to love I don’t know! Why I should not gratify my love I don’t know!
Why I should make myself believe that I know lots of things which in
reality I know not I don’t know! So I admit that I don’t know! Why I
should worry my head with lots of things I can’t use I don’t know;
therefore I don’t! Why I should plan and scheme a life for myself
after I die I don’t know; therefore I don’t! Why I should become
patriotic and kill people I never saw, or get killed by them, I don’t
know; therefore I don’t! Why I should reverence the opinion of men who
don’t know any more than I, although they say they do, I don’t know;
therefore I don’t! Why I, an intellectual parasite, should consider
myself superior to one of the other kind, I don’t know; therefore I
don’t! Why I, one kind of a thief, should prosecute another, I don’t
know; therefore I don’t! Why I, a fool who knows nothing, should
distrust Life that placed me before all other animals of the earth,
I don’t know; therefore I don’t! Since I don’t know why I should not
trust to life, and seeing the result of Life’s accomplishment without
my intellectual aid, I “let” the Life which is in me, and of which I am
a part, guide me. Instinctively it impresses me with the finale of the
things I need. Of course “instinct” is not the proper tool with which
to forge conclusions in this practical world. The intellectual method
is to reason from a premise, then by degrees get nearer and nearer,
and the end reached would be the conclusion. Not being intellectual,
I start with the instinctive conclusion; and then my intellect takes
the step which must be taken to bring me to the conclusion already
concluded. Therein my reasoning is different from the rest of the
reasoners’ reasoning. But who cares?--the things which will make me
happy, I seek; the painful ones, I avoid.
I love because I love to love! I get pleasure from loving, and why
should I ask more? So you see, by not pretending to know anything, Life
knows me better than you know Life by pretending you know something
which you do not. So I let Life do my work--or Life’s work, it matters
not which it is. The whole universe is ready to help me; while you,
in knowing, everything is against you; and as you do not know how
to manage Life you are a failure. I am happy and you are not. You
are afraid while I do not know what to fear. Ignorance, you say, is
the cause of fear. That is not true. Fear is composed of unreliable
knowledge. You are not afraid of nothing; you are afraid of something.
If that something exists, it is then sensing danger, which is not fear;
when that something does not exist--like ghosts--then it is fear; and
only people who know and believe in ghosts are afraid of them. Not
knowing anything which is not so, I sense danger, but have no fear.
I don’t worry, neither do I regret. Why should I regret? If I have done
something which resulted in painful experience, by avoiding repetition
I make amends. As regretting takes the time which should go to make
amends, therefore regretting injures instead of helps. So, if you
really regret, you will not regret, but make amends; but if you keep on
regretting you really don’t regret.