Why then is a little learning dangerous? Alas, it is
not the little learning, but the much ignorance which it supposes, that is
dangerous!
We also frequently hear it said, that the general diffusion of popular
knowledge is unfavorable to great acquisitions in any one individual. This
is a favorite dogma with those persons whose views are all retrospective,
who are ever magnifying past ages at the expense of the present, and who
will insist upon riding through life with their faces turned toward the
horse's tail instead of his head. "We have smatterers and sciolists in
abundance," say they, "but where are the giant scholars of other days?"
Dr. Johnson once said, in reply to a remark upon the general intelligence
of the people of Scotland, that learning in Scotland was like bread in a
besieged city, where every man gets a mouthful, but none a full meal. He
also observed in a conversation held with Lord Monboddo, that learning had
much decreased in England, since his remembrance; to which his lordship
remarked, "you have lived to see its decrease in England; I, its
extinction in Scotland." The fallacy of views like these consists in
taking it for granted that there is always just about the same aggregate
amount of knowledge in the world, and that only the ratio of distribution
is changed.
Pages:
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61