(To be continued.)
FOOTNOTES:
[8] This aphorism has been probably assigned to Lord Bacon upon the mere authority of the index to his works. It is the aphorism of the index-maker, certainly not of the great master of inductive philosophy. Bacon has, it is true, repeatedly dwelt on the power of knowledge, but with so many explanations and distinctions, that nothing could be more unjust to his general meaning than to attempt to cramp into a sentence what it costs him a volume to define. Thus, if in one page he appears to confound knowledge with power, in another he sets them in the strongest antithesis to each other; as follows, "Adeo, signanter Deus opera potentiæ et sapientiæ diseriminavit." But it would be as unfair to Bacon to convert into an aphorism the sentence that discriminates between knowledge and power as it is to convert into an aphorism any sentence that confounds them.
[9] "But the greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or misplacing of the last or farthest end of knowledge:—for men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession;"—[that is, for most of those objects which are meant by the ordinary citers of the saying, 'Knowledge is power;'] "and seldom, sincerely, to give a true account of these gifts of reason to the benefit and use of men; as if there were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit; or a terrace for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down, with a fair prospect; or a tower of state for a proud mind to raise itself upon; or a fort or commanding ground for strife and contention; or a shop for profit or sale—and not a rich storehouse for the glory of the Creator, and the relief of men's estate."—Advancement of Learning, Book I.
UNCLE JOHN; OR, THE ROUGH ROAD TO RICHES.
England affords, even in these degenerate days of peace, innumerable examples of the class called "lucky fellows;" that is to say, men who have begun life with a charity-school education and a shilling, and are now prosperous in wealth and station. Perhaps it is hardly fair to impute to good-luck, what may be mainly owing to industry, frugality, patience, and perseverance. But, after all, one may starve with all these virtues, in spite of all that copy-book maxims may say to the contrary. There is good-luck in success, whatever may have been the qualities by which that good luck has been seized at the right moment and turned to good account. Industry, frugality, patience, and perseverance, form a perfect locomotive—good-luck is the engine-driver who turns the handle and sets them in motion at the right moment.
Men who have been the "architects of their own fortunes," never admit that good luck has had any thing to do with their prosperity. Their pardonable vanity at their own success makes them guilty of a species of ingratitude to Providence. Listen to one of these old gentlemen holding forth to his hopeful son or nephew on his, the said old gentleman's, past life; on his early poverty, his self-denial, his hard work, and his subsequent reward; and the burden of his discourse is ever the same,
"Alone I did it, boy!"
Should the listener at any point be tempted rashly to exclaim "how lucky!" the old gentleman will turn on him with a severe frown and say, "luck, sir; nonsense. There's no such thing as luck. Live on a crust, sir; that's the only way for a man to get on in the world." The old gentleman quite forgets that if his first venture in the Chutnee East Indiaman had been a failure; or his first dabble in the stocks had not been followed by the battle of Leipsic; or his senior partner, who had nine-tenths of the profits of the business, had not departed this life suddenly in an apoplectic fit, he would have held a very different position in the world, and probably have been now a denizen of the second floor over his counting-house in the city, instead of a resident in Hyde Park Gardens.