SECTION I.
There are many kinds of ignorance; but the worst of all is that of critics, who, it is well known, are doubly bound to possess information and judgment as persons who undertake to affirm and to censure. When they pronounce erroneously, therefore, they are doubly culpable.
A man, for example, composes two large volumes upon a few pages of a valuable book which he has not understood, and in the first place examines the following words:
"The sea has covered immense tracts.... The deep beds of shells which are found in Touraine and elsewhere, could have been deposited there only by the sea."
True, if those beds of shells exist in fact; but the critic ought to be aware that the author himself discovered, or thought he had discovered, that those regular beds of shells have no existence.
He ought to have said:
"The universal Deluge is related by Moses with the agreement of all nations."
1. Because the Pentateuch was long unknown, not only to the other nations of the world, but to the Jews themselves.
2. Because only a single copy of the law was found at the bottom of an old chest in the time of King Josiah.
3. Because that book was lost during the captivity.