Knowledge

“ We should seek substantial information, and trust little to that kind of so-called learning that is based entirely upon theory. We should pluck fruit from the tree of knowledge, and taste, then shall our eyes be open to see, our ears to hear and our hearts to understand. ”

“ How full of information, of philosophic observation, of accurate knowledge! It appears to be written by men of trained intellect and of experience,—educated men of the world, who, by reason of their position and character, have access to the highest sources of information. ”

“ I would ask of my friends or foes, no matter which—I mean those who do not believe as I do—those who look upon us as a set of fanatics, I would ask a few questions of the world of mankind, of the greatest philosophers, of the greatest geniuses, and of the men of the most profound knowledge on the face of the earth, Can you tell me where you get your knowledge? ”

“ Next, that knowledge, in this light, is no longer sacred and secular, great and trivial, practical and theoretical. All knowledge, dealt out to us in such portions as we are ready for, is sacred; knowledge is, perhaps, a beautiful whole, a great unity, embracing God and man and the universe, but having many parts which are not comparable with one another in the sense of less or more, because all are necessary and each has its functions. ”

“ What do the people really understand by knowledge? What do they want when they seek "knowledge"? Nothing more than that what is strange is to be traced back to something known. And we philosophers—have we really understood anything more by knowledge? ”

“ We are now about to apply to the great cause and the great effect before us this twofold species of demonstration—this extrinsic and intrinsic touchstone used by our intellect in acquiring its noble treasure of proved facts and tried certainties in the domain of philosophy, metaphysics, history, natural sciences, and, in fact, of every branch of human knowledge. ”

“ Surely if the evolution of the ages, so far, has culminated in man with his capability of knowing and serving the true, the just, the good, these facts of his mind and life are the highest of which we can take cognizance, and in them, if anywhere, we must find the key to all knowledge, the reason of all phenomena. ”

“ How the understanding is best conducted to the knowledge of science, by what steps it is to be led forwards in its pursuit, how it is to be cured of its defects, and habituated to new studies, has been the inquiry of many acute and learned men, whose observations I shall not either adopt or censure; my purpose being to consider the moral discipline of the mind, and to promote the increase of virtue rather than of learning. ”

“ Now there is nothing, however hidden—nothing, however profound—into which this sensuous principle of knowledge, which investigates all that is earthly, natural or human, and historical, may not attempt at least to penetrate. ”

“ Mind is the great lever of all things; human thought is the process by which human ends are ultimately answered; and the diffusion of knowledge, so astonishing in the last half-century, has rendered innumerable minds, variously gifted by nature, competent to be competitors or fellow-workers on the theatre of intellectual operation. ”

“ But, while I am descanting [599] upon the conduct of the understanding, and the best mode of acquiring knowledge, some men may be disposed to ask, “Why conduct my understanding with such endless care? and what is the use of so much knowledge?” What is the use of so much knowledge? What is the use of so much life? What are we to do with the seventy years of existence allotted to us? ”

“ But that which par excellence is termed knowledge, bears the impress of judgment and reason, in the exercise of which there will be rational cognitions alone, applying purely to objects of thought, and resulting from the bare energy of the soul. ”

“ Nay, whatsoever proceedeth from these Mines of divine Wisdom and these Treasuries of eternal knowledge is truth, and naught else but the truth. The saying: “Knowledge is one point, which the foolish have multiplied” is a proof of Our argument, and the tradition: “Knowledge is a light which God sheddeth into the heart of whomsoever He willeth” a confirmation of Our statement. ”

“ Each incident stands out, every phrase acquires new force, each link in the argument is riveted, in fact we have performed The Act of Knowing, and that which we have read, or heard, becomes a part of ourselves, it is assimilated after the due rejection of waste matter. Like those famous men of old we have found out “knowledge meet for the people” and to our surprise it is the best knowledge conveyed in the best form that they demand. ”

“ Our knowledge is the amassed thought and experience of innumerable minds: our language, our science, our religion, our opinions, our fancies we inherited. ”

“ If thou know thyself, thou knowest that the nature of thy mind inclineth to knowledge; and by the knowledge of effects, to rise up to the cause; and by the knowledge of lower and lesser matters, to ascend to the highest and greatest. ”

“ Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass,
The mere materials with which wisdom builds,
Till smoothed and squared and fitted to its place,
Does but encumber whom it seems to enrich.
Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much,
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.
Books are not seldom talismans and spells
By which the magic art of shrewder wits
Holds an unthinking multitude enthralled. ”

“ Knowledge, too—how shall I be sure that my knowledge, if I get it, is true knowledge, and not false knowledge, knowledge which is not really according to facts? I see too many who have knowledge for which I care little enough. Some know a thousand things which are of no use to them, or to any human being. ”

“ According to the view of Knowledge of which we have extracted examples above, the ideas of the mind are originally furnished to it by sensation, from which therefore are derived, not necessarily all our Thoughts, but all the materials of Discourse, all that constitutes the essence of Knowledge. ”

“ If you call the object of knowledge 'reality,' and call the manner of its being cognized 'truth,' cognized moreover on particular occasions, and variously, by particular human beings who have their various businesses with it, and if you hold consistently to this nomenclature, it seems to me that you escape all sorts of trouble. ”

“ It will be noticed that in this brief survey of the field of natural knowledge I have not spoken of the technical applications of science, nor alluded to its important aspects in relation to the material wants of life. On this theme, did time permit, I might speak at length. There are two classes of motives which urge men to the pursuit of knowledge; on the one hand, those of worldly fame or profit, and, on the other, the far nobler sentiment which has the finding-out of truth for its object. ”

“ His frequent references to history, his allusions to various kinds of knowledge, and his images selected from art and nature, with his observations on the operations of the mind and the modes of life, show an intelligence perpetually on the wing, excursive, vigorous, and diligent, eager to pursue knowledge, and attentive to retain it. ”

“ The diligence with which you endeavour to cultivate the knowledge of nature, manners, and life, will perhaps incline you to pay some regard to the observations of one who has been taught to know mankind by unwelcome information, and whose opinions are the result, not of solitary conjectures, but of practice and experience. ”

“ You will find the facts to be, that entirely true knowledge is both possible and necessary—first of facts relating to matter, and then of the forces and passions that act on or in matter;—that, of all these forces, the noblest we can know is the energy which either imagines, or perceives, the existence of a living power greater than its own; and that the study of the relations which exist between this energy, and the resultant action of men, are as much subjects of pure science as the curve of a projectile. ”

“ Thus, knowledge of general principles must be applied to particular affairs, and this supposes that one knows how to reason correctly, how to infer the particular from the general, how to put facts together. ”

“ We seek knowledge in order to use it for the guidance of our conduct in life, for the orientation of our activities, for the improvement of our condition; knowing that knowledge is power, we seek it in order to make it minister to our needs. ”

“ One of the first requirements for the education of the object of philosophy is to recall its various names. The understanding, or the power of knowledge, is also called intelligence, intellect, mind, spirit, reason, power of cognition, of conception, of distinction, of imagination, of judgment, and of drawing conclusions. ”

“ At the risk of being tedious, I shall take an example of the growth of our information about a single substance, to illustrate the indefinitely great extensions of knowledge which are possible to us, in every direction in which we may seek it—this in contrast with the views of knowable truth which were current in the infancy of information. ”

“ And, first, I grant the knowledge of all those truths is perfective of the understanding, which are the matter of those arts and sciences, that are built upon stable and immoveable foundations, such as divinity, metaphysics, geometry, together with those unchangeable rules and measures of reason and consequence, which lead us to all other knowledge, and are the subject of that art we term logic. ”

“ It was so in my training. We seek to silence all opinions, all half-truths, all thinking, in fact, in order to Know. We postulate, of course, a center of Spontaneous Knowledge, or Genius, above the mind. ”

“ “The highest wisdom is not founded on reason alone, not on those worldly sciences of physics, history, chemistry, and the like, into which intellectual knowledge is divided. The highest wisdom is one. The highest wisdom has but one science—the science of the whole—the science explaining the whole creation and man’s place in it. ”

“ By thus first distinguishing sharply between the conscious internal meaning of an idea and its apparently external meaning, we get before us an important way of stating the problem of knowledge or, in other words, the problem of the whole relation between Idea and Being. ”

“ Every concrete act of knowledge, in our conscious life, includes, then, a more or less deliberate abstraction from the background of recognized reality which we conceive as the world, for the sake of a clearer attention to certain special objects of our present acknowledgment. ”

“ The Fourth Book, about Knowledge proper and Probability, closes the Essay. Knowledge, he says, is perception of relations among ideas; it is expressed in our affirmations and negations; and real knowledge is discernment of the relations of ideas to what is real. ”

“ Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one,
Have ofttimes no connexion—knowledge dwells
In heads replete with thoughts of other men;
Wisdom in minds attentive to their own. ”

“ By means of self-instruction and the acquisition of ideas, man finally acquires the idea of SCIENCE,—that is, of a system of knowledge in harmony with the reality of things, and inferred from observation. ”

“ Science gives us knowledge, but only philosophy can give us wisdom. ”

“ Learning is, in too many cases, but a foil to common sense; a substitute for true knowledge. ”

“ The clearer light is forceful and efficacious for a better realization of the moral task. "Knowledge is power," especially knowledge which throws into view the most impressive realities and relations, and appeals with the most cogent motives. ”

“ All learning is useful, all the sciences are curious, all the arts are beautiful; but more useful, more curious, and more beautiful, is the perfect knowledge and perfect government of ourselves. ”

“ It is, indeed, certain that the chief importance of most knowledge—of the truth of most of the things which we believe—does, in this world, consist in its extrinsic advantages: it is immensely valuable as a means. ”

“ Of Ethology, Or The Science Of The Formation Of Character.
§ 1. The laws of mind as characterized in the preceding chapter, compose the universal or abstract portion of the philosophy of human nature; and all the truths of common experience, constituting a practical knowledge of mankind, must, to the extent to which they are truths, be results or consequences of these. ”

“ And now, from the consideration of pleasure, we pass to that of knowledge. Let us reflect that there are two kinds of knowledge—the one creative or productive, and the other educational and philosophical. ”

“ Wherefore the better to make myself understood that I mean nothing less than words, and directly to demonstrate the point which we are now upon, that is, what is the true end, scope, or office of knowledge, which I have set down to consist not in any plausible, delectable, reverend, or admired discourse, or any satisfactory arguments, but in effecting and working, and in discovery of particulars not revealed before for the better endowment and help of man's life; ”

“ Nor is it the extent of the knowledge, alone, which ennobles, but much more the spirit and aim with which it is cultivated, and that spirit and aim you may carry into any occupation however engrossing, and into any condition of life however obscure. ”

“ Observe, Those who have their eyes opened, and have some understanding in the things of God, have need to be more and more enlightened, and to have their knowledge more clear, and distinct, and experimental. ”