LETTER I.
TO A FRIEND WHO RECOMMENDED THE AUTHOR TO LEARN THIS THING AND THAT.
Lesson learned from a cook—The ingredients of knowledge—Importance of proportion in the ingredients—Case of an English author—Two landscape painters—The unity and charm of character often dependent upon the limitations of culture—The burden of knowledge may diminish the energy of action—Difficulty of suggesting a safe rule for the selection of our knowledge—Men qualified for their work by ignorance as well as by knowledge—Men remarkable for the extent of their studies—Franz Wœpke—Goethe—Hebrew proverb.
I happened one day to converse with an excellent French cook about the delicate art which he professed, and he comprised the whole of it under two heads—the knowledge of the mutual influences of ingredients, and the judicious management of heat. It struck me that there existed a very close analogy between cookery and education; and, on following out the subject in my own way, I found that what he told me suggested several considerations of the very highest importance in the culture of the human intellect.
Amongst the dishes for which my friend had a deserved reputation was a certain gâteau de foie which had a very exquisite flavor. The principal ingredient, not in quantity hut in power, was the liver of a fowl; but there were several other ingredients also, and amongst these a leaf or two of parsley. He told me that the influence of the parsley was a good illustration of his theory about his art. If the parsley were omitted, the flavor he aimed at was not produced at all; but, on the other hand, if the quantity of parsley was in the least excessive, then the gâteau instead of being a delicacy for gourmets became an uneatable mess. Perceiving that I was really interested in the subject, he kindly promised a practical evidence of his doctrine, and the next day intentionally spoiled his dish by a trifling addition of parsley. He had not exaggerated the consequences; the delicate flavor entirely departed, and left a nauseous bitterness in its place, like the remembrance of an ill-spent youth.
And so it is, I thought, with the different ingredients of knowledge which are so eagerly and indiscriminately recommended. We are told that we ought to learn this thing and that, as if every new ingredient did not affect the whole flavor of the mind. There is a sort of intellectual chemistry which is quite as marvellous as material chemistry, and a thousand times more difficult to observe. One general truth may, however, be relied upon as surely and permanently our own. It is true that everything we learn affects the whole character of the mind.
Consider how incalculably important becomes the question of proportion in our knowledge, and how that which we are is dependent as much upon our ignorance as our science. What we call ignorance is only a smaller proportion—what we call science only a larger. The larger quantity is recommended as an unquestionable good, but the goodness of it is entirely dependent on the mental product that we want. Aristocracies have always instinctively felt this, and have decided that a gentleman ought not to know too much of certain arts and sciences. The character which they had accepted as their ideal would have been destroyed by indiscriminate additions to those ingredients of which long experience had fixed the exact proportions. The same feeling is strong in the various professions: there is an apprehension that the disproportionate knowledge may destroy the professional nature. The less intelligent members of the profession will tell you that they dread an unprofessional use of time; but the more thoughtful are not so apprehensive about hours and days, they dread that sure transformation of the whole intellect which follows every increase of knowledge.
I knew an English author who by great care and labor had succeeded in forming a style which harmonized quite perfectly with the character of his thinking, and served as an unfailing means of communication with his readers. Every one recognized its simple ease and charm, and he might have gone on writing with that enviable facility had he not determined to study Locke’s philosophical compositions. Shortly afterwards my friend’s style suddenly lost its grace; he began to write with difficulty, and what he wrote was unpleasantly difficult to read. Even the thinking was no longer his own thinking. Having been in too close communication with a writer who was not a literary artist, his own art had deteriorated in consequence.
I could mention an English landscape painter who diminished the pictorial excellence of his works by taking too much interest in geology. His landscapes became geological illustrations, and no longer held together pictorially. Another landscape painter, who began by taking a healthy delight in the beauty of natural scenery, became morbidly religious after an illness, and thenceforth passed by the loveliest European scenery as comparatively unworthy of his attention, to go and make ugly pictures of places that had sacred associations.
For people who produce nothing these risks appear to be less serious; and yet there have been admirable characters, not productive, whose admirableness might have been lessened by the addition of certain kinds of learning. The last generation of the English country aristocracy was particularly rich in characters whose unity and charm was dependent upon the limitations of their culture, and which would have been entirely altered, perhaps not for the better, by simply knowing a science or a literature that was closed to them.
Abundant illustrations might be collected in evidence of the well-known truth that the burden of knowledge may diminish the energy of action; but this is rather outside of what we are considering, which is the influence of knowledge upon the intellectual and not the active life.
I regret very much not to be able to suggest anything like a safe rule for the selection of our knowledge. The most rational one which has been hit upon as yet appears to be a simple confidence in the feeling that we inwardly want to know. If I feel the inward want for a certain kind of knowledge, it may perhaps be presumed that it would be good for me; but even this feeling is not perfectly reliable, since people are often curious about things that do not closely concern them, whilst they neglect what it is most important for them to ascertain. All that I venture to insist upon is, that we cannot learn any new thing without changing our whole intellectual composition as a chemical compound is changed by another ingredient; that the mere addition of knowledge may be good for us or bad for us; and that whether it will be good or bad is usually a more obscure problem than the enthusiasm of educators will allow. That depends entirely on the work we have to do. Men are qualified for their work by knowledge, but they are also negatively qualified for it by their ignorance. Nature herself appears to take care that the workman shall not know too much—she keeps him steadily to his task; fixes him in one place mentally if not corporeally, and conquers his restlessness by fatigue. As we are bound to a little planet, and hindered by impassable gulfs of space from wandering in stars where we have no business, so we are kept by the force of circumstances to the limited studies that belong to us. If we have any kind of efficiency, very much of it is owing to our narrowness, which is favorable to a powerful individuality.
Sometimes, it is true, we meet with instances of men remarkable for the extent of their studies. Franz Wœpke, who died in 1864, was an extraordinary example of this kind. In the course of a short life he became, although unknown, a prodigy of various learning. His friend M. Taine says that he was erudite in many eruditions. His favorite pursuit was the history of mathematics, but as auxiliaries he had learned Arabic, and Persian, and Sanskrit. He was classically educated, he wrote and spoke the principal modern languages easily and correctly;[1] his printed works are in three languages. He had lived in several nations, and known their leading men of science. And yet this astonishing list of acquirements may be reduced to the exercise of two decided and natural tastes. Franz Wœpke had the gift of the linguist and an interest in mathematics, the first serving as auxiliary to the second.
Goethe said that “a vast abundance of objects must lie before us ere we can think upon them.” Wœpke felt the need of this abundance, but he did not go out of his way to find it. The objectionable seeking after knowledge is the seeking after the knowledge which does not belong to us. In vain you urge me to go in quest of sciences for which I have no natural aptitude. Would you have me act like that foolish camel in the Hebrew proverb, which in going to seek horns lost his ears?