ESSAY VI. Πολυμαθίη κάρτα μὲν ὠφελέει, κάρτα δὲ βλάπτει τὸν ἔχοντα. Ωφελέει μὲν τὸν δεξιὸν ἄνδρα, βλάπτει δὲ τὸν ῥηϊδίως φωνεῦντα πᾶν ἕπος καὶ ἐν παντὶ δήμῳ. Χρὴ δὲ καιροῦ μέτρα εἰδέναι· σοφίης γὰρ οὗτος ὅρος. Εἰ δὲ οἱ ἔξω καιροῦ ῥῆσιν μουσικὴν πεπνυμένως ἀείσουσιν, οὐ παρα δέχονται ἐν ἀργίῃ γνώμην, αἰτίην δ ̓ ἔχουσι μωρίας. ANAXARCHUS, apud Stobæum, Serm. xxxiv.* General knowledge and ready talent may be of very great benefit, but they may likewife be of very great differvice, to the poffeffor. They are highly advantageous to the man of found judgment, and dexterous in applying them; but they injure your fluent holder-forth on all fubjects in all companies. It is neceffary to know the meafures of the time and occafion : for this is the very boundary of wisdom-(that by which it is defined, and diftinguished from mere ability). But he, who without regard to the unfitness of the time and the audience will foar in the high region of his fancies with his garland and finging robes about him, will not acquire the credit of ferioufnefs amidst frivolity, but will be condemned for his fillinefs, as the greateft idler of the company because the most unfeafonable. HE moral law, it has been fhewn, permits an inadequate communication of unfophifticated truth, on the condition that it alone is practicable, and binds us to filence when neither an adequate, nor Edit. Gaisford.-Ed. 1. even a right, expofition of the truth is in our power. We must first inquire then,— what is neceffary to conftitute, and what may allowably accompany, a right though inadequate notion,and, fecondly, what are the circumstances, from which we may deduce the impracticability of conveying even a right notion; the presence or abfence of which circumstances it therefore becomes our duty to ascertain. In answer to the first ques he sti tion, the conscience demands: 1. That it fhould be the wish and defign of the mind to convey the truth only; that if in addition to the negative loss implied in its inadequateness, the notion communicated should lead to any pofitive error, the cause fhould lie in the fault or defect of the recipient, not of the communicator, whose paramount duty, whose inalienable right, it is to preferve his own integrity, the integral character of his own moral being. Self-refpect; the reverence which he owes * *The best and most forcible fense of a word is often that, which is contained in its etymology. The author of the poems, the Synagogue, frequently affixed to Herbert's Temple, gives the original purport of the word 'integrity,' in the following lines of the fourth stanza of the eighth poem; Next to fincerity, remember still, Thou must resolve upon integrity. God will have all thou haft, thy mind, thy will, And again, after fome verfes on conftancy and humility, the poem concludes with Church-Porch.-Ed. to the presence of humanity in the person of his neighbour; the reverential upholding of the faith of man in man; gratitude for the particular act of confidence; and religious awe for the divine purposes in the gift of language; are duties too facred and important to be facrificed to the gueffes of an individual, concerning the advantages to be gained by the breach of them. 2. It is further required, that the supposed error shall not be such as will pervert or materially vitiate the imperfect truth, in communicating which we had unwillingly, though not perhaps unwittingly, occafioned it. A barbarian fo inftructed in the power and intelligence of the infinite Being as to be left wholly ignorant of his moral attributes, would have acquired none but erroneous notions even of the former. At the very best, he would gain only a theory to fatisfy his curiofity with; but more probably, would deduce the belief of a Moloch or a Baal. For the idea of an irresistible, invisible, Being naturally produces terror in the mind of uninftructed and unprotected man, and with terror there will be He that defires to fee The face of God, in his religion must Having mentioned the name of Herbert, that model of a man, a gentleman, and a clergyman, let me add, that the quaintnefs of fome of his thoughts, not of his diction, than which nothing can be more pure, manly, and unaffected, has blinded modern readers to the great general merit of his poems, which are for the most part exquifite in their kind. affociated whatever has been accustomed to excite it, anger, vengeance, &c.; as is proved by the mythology of all barbarous nations. This must be the cafe with all organized truths; the component parts derive their fignificance from the idea of the whole. Bolingbroke removed love, justice, and choice, from power and intelligence, and yet pretended to have left unimpaired the conviction of a Deity. He might as confiftently have paralyzed the optic nerve, and then excused himself by affirming, that he had, however, not touched the eye. The third condition of a right though inadequate notion is, that the error occafioned be greatly outweighed by the importance of the truth commu-butto nicated. The rustic would have little reason to thank the philofopher, who should give him true conceptions of the folly of believing in ghosts, omens, dreams, &c. at the price of abandoning his faith in divine providence, and in the continued existence of his fellow-creatures after their death. The teeth of the old ferpent planted by the Cadmufes of French literature, under Lewis XV., produced a plenteous crop of philofophers and truth-trumpeters of this kind, in the reign of his fucceffor. They taught many truths, historical, political, phyfiological, and ecclefiaftical, and diffused their notions fo widely, that the very ladies and hair-dreffers of Paris became fluent encyclopedifts and the fole price which their fcholars paid for these treasures of new information, was 4 to believe Christianity an impofture, the Scriptures a forgery, the worship, if not the belief, of God superstition, hell a fable, heaven a dream, our life without providence, and our death without hope. They became as gods as foon as the fruit of this Upas tree of knowledge and liberty had opened their eyes to perceive that they were no more than beafts-fomewhat more cunning, perhaps, and abundantly more mischievous. What can be conceived more natural than the refult,-that felf-acknowledged beasts should first act, and next fuffer themselves to be treated, as beafts. We judge by comparison. To exclude the great is to magnify the little. The disbelief of effential wifdom and goodness, neceffarily prepares the imagination for the fupremacy of cunning with malignity. Folly and vice have their appropriate religions, as well as virtue and true knowledge: and in fome way or other fools will dance round the golden calf, and wicked men beat their timbrels and kettle-drums to, -Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with blood My feelings have led me on, and in my illuftration I had almost loft from my view the fubject to be illustrated. One condition yet remains: that the error foreseen shall not be of a kind to prevent or impede the after acquirement of that knowledge which will remove it. Obferve, how graciously nature inftructs her human children. She cannot give us the knowledge derived from fight without |