Leonard (bitterly).—"Sir, you make use of knowledge itself to argue against knowledge."
Parson.—"I make use of the little I know to prove the foolishness of idolatry. I do not argue against knowledge; I argue against knowledge-worship. For here, I see in your Essay, that you are not contented with raising human knowledge into something like divine omnipotence, you must also confound her with virtue. According to you, we have only to diffuse the intelligence of the few among the many, and all at which we preachers aim is accomplished. Nay more; for whereas we humble preachers have never presumed to say, with the heathen Stoic, that even virtue is sure of happiness below (though it be the best road to it), you tell us plainly that this knowledge of yours gives not only the virtue of a saint, but bestows the bliss of a God. Before the steps of your idol the evils of life disappear. To hear you, one has but 'to know,' in order to be exempt from the sins and sorrows of the ignorant. Has it ever been so? Grant that you diffuse amongst the many all the knowledge ever attained by the few. Have the wise few been so unerring and so happy? You supposed that your motto was accurately cited from Bacon. What was Bacon himself? The poet tells you:
'The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind.'
Can you hope to bestow upon the vast mass of your order the luminous intelligence of this 'Lord Chancellor of nature?' Grant that you do so—and what guarantee have you for the virtue and the happiness which you assume as the concomitants of the gift? See Bacon himself; what black ingratitude! what miserable self-seeking! what truckling servility! what abject and pitiful spirit! So far from intellectual knowledge, in its highest form and type, insuring virtue and bliss, it is by no means uncommon to find great mental cultivation combined with great moral corruption." (Aside to Riccabocca)—"Push on, will you?"
Riccabocca.—"A combination remarkable in eras as in individuals. Petronius shows us a state of morals at which a commonplace devil would blush, in the midst of a society more intellectually cultivated than certainly was that which produced Regulus or the Horatii. And the most learned eras in modern Italy were precisely those which brought the vices into the most ghastly refinement."
Leonard (rising in great agitation, and clasping his hands).—"I cannot contend with you, who produce against information so slender and crude as mine the stores which have been locked from my reach. But I feel that there must be another side to this shield—a shield that you will not even allow to be silver. And, oh, if you thus speak of knowledge, why have you encouraged me to know?"
CHAPTER XX.
"Ah! my son!" said the Parson, "if I wished to prove the value of Religion, would you think I served it much, if I took as my motto, 'Religion is power?' Would not that be a base and sordid view of its advantages? And would you not say he who regards religion as a power, intends to abuse it as a priestcraft?"
"Well put!" said Riccabocca.
"Wait a moment—let me think. Ah—I see, sir!" said Leonard.