KNOWLEDGE AND IGNORANCE.—No. I.
BOULDERS.
In using the above terms, let it not be supposed that I mean to imply by the one a perfect knowledge, or a knowledge of everything, and by the other a perfect ignorance, or a total want of any knowledge. Either of such conditions of the mind is incompatible with human organization; the one, a perfect knowledge, belongs alone to an order of intelligence infinitely excelling that of man; and the other, a perfect ignorance, must be sought for in creatures so far below him as to possess no intelligence. The idiot is not without perception and knowledge, though of an imperfect and irregular kind. The dog knows its master, recognizes and obeys his voice. The horse knows and traces, after years of absence, the road he had once been accustomed to travel; and even reptiles and fishes acquire a knowledge of persons, of times, and of things; all this being independent of that range of intelligences which has been given to every creature for the preservation of its own existence, and for ensuring the continuance of its species. The terms Knowledge and Ignorance are used, then, in a comparative sense, being, according to circumstances, convertible one into the other. What, for instance, is knowledge at one time, becomes ignorance at another; and the man who seems wise to those who know less than he does, seems equally foolish to those who know more—a strong reason surely why no one, however gifted he may to himself appear, should despise his less gifted brethren. Mounted he may indeed be on a hill so high that he can discern objects in the distance which are hidden from the more humble plodders of the plain below, and yet his own horizon be proportionately limited when compared to that of others who have climbed the still higher mountain above him. Can we not all bring home to our minds this varying value of our acquirements at successive periods of our lives? and are we not sometimes surprised to reflect that some problem was once difficult, or some fact obscure, which is now as familiar to our understandings as the daylight to our eyes? We have, in short, as regards these particular objects, passed from the night of ignorance into the day of knowledge. And us with the same individual, and even with whole classes of individuals, at different epochs, so is it with different individuals at the same time: one person holding in his hand the dim taper of ignorance, sees by its flickering and ill-directed light the object of his examination, distorted by partial and shifting shadows—just as some timid traveller on a dusky night sees in each waving bush, as to his alarmed imagination it grows to a portentous size, or assumes a fearful form, some aërial phantom, or some terrestrial monster. The other, raising the bright lamp of knowledge, dispels at once by its clear and steady light, uncertainty, and sees the object as it is.
So many indeed are the practical illustrations of the different manner in which the same object is viewed by knowledge and by ignorance, that it is difficult to make a first choice. All around us there are objects, the nature and qualities of which are known to the few, unknown to the many, and hence either overlooked or misunderstood by the latter, studied and understood by the former. Each portion, however minute, of our own body, and of that of every other organic being, has in it wherewithal to exercise the ingenuity and reflection of the wisest; and yet how many thousands live and die without having even desired much less sought after such knowledge! Nor is the inorganic world less fruitful in subjects of inquiry, nor less neglected. The ploughman “whistles as he goes for want of thought,” not because nature has failed to spread around him inexhaustible food for thought, but because his mind has not been trained to think. By each movement of his ploughshare, page after page, as it were, is opened to his view of new and interesting matter—and yet he sees before him nothing but silent and unmeaning clods. By each movement of his foot he disturbs those pebbles which, speechless to him because he questions not, return to the interrogations of knowledge wonder-stirring answers, when asked,
1. Of what they are composed?
2. Whence they came?
3. And how they came?
For the present we shall pass over these more humble whisperers of things curious and strange, and turn to those massive fragments of rocks which, far removed from their original site, are now scattered either singly or in groups over a large portion of the earth’s surface, resting sometimes on the slopes of hills composed of materials totally different from their own, seen sometimes on the sand and gravel of extensive plains, and distant from the mountains of which they were once a part, sometimes from one to three hundred miles: they are Boulders. Can we not picture to ourselves, in that remote period of our island’s history when forest and morass occupied the place of its bogs, and when the winds sighed over comparative desolation, an ancient inhabitant, imbued with nature’s living poetry, pausing before one of those grey lichen-covered masses which had withstood the warrings of the elements for perhaps thousands of years, and, as the awe of the surrounding solitude came like a charm over his soul, gazing with growing veneration at the venerable rock?—to him it would appear as if cast down from heaven, or planted where it now stands by some supernatural or giant hand. What spot, then, more fitted for the simple worship of nature’s child?—what temple, what altar more suited to his simple rites?
A rock such as we have here described may have been found supported in part by lesser fragments, or such supports may have been introduced by partial excavations under favourable projections of its surface; and in either case, the superfluous earth, sand, or stones under and about it, being removed, this ancient monument of the operations of Nature would henceforth become an instrument in the worship of Nature’s God—a Cromlech!
Whether, however, this be, or not, a correct view of the original impulse which led to the selection of these giant stones, or of the purpose to which they were applied, it is for our antiquarian friends to decide. Suffice it here to add, that the transportation of such huge masses from their native beds, by the power of man or of giants, was at such a remote epoch, and under the circumstances of the country, impossible; nor will I stop to inquire whether a work so mighty was performed by spirits light as air.