The Sun.
London, England, 1852-10-29 00:00:00

SIR BULIVER LYTTON ON KNOWLEDGE

The following oration up-7n kiaowledge was delivered
by Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart, M.P., on ilurs-
day, the 21st inst., before a numerous and distinguished
audience, upon the occasion of a Literary SoireJ held at
the Town-hall at Hertford:—

Sir EDWARD in rising was received with hearty and
long continued cheering: when this had subsided he said
--e Ladies and Gentlemen,—When my worthy friend
the Mayor kindly accompanied me through yonder ad-
ioinieg room, and informed me that it was your Muni-
cipal Council; when I beheld on its table, amidst so
many objects of interest and art, the mace and charters
of your Corporation; when I called to mind that that
chamber was devoted to the practical business of your
town, and saw it now filled for the purpose of embellish-
ing our ordinary work-day existence with the charms of
literature, and the graceful influences of art, I felt that
, the selection of our place of meeting was a recognition of
this important truth; that no object can more worthily
engage the practical attention of a community of free-
men—no purpose can more dignify their council-hall
than the noble endeavour to cement the union between
political liberty and intellectual improvement. (Cheers.)
I am not going to inflict on you a long harangue on the
advantages of knowledge, those advantages are too ob•
vious and the subject too hacknied. Indeed, I think it
is the fault of our age amongst men of all parties and all
sects, not to underrate the value of diffusing information
through the medium of popular libraries and institutes,
but rather to anticipate too exaggerated results from the
mere appetite for knowledge; forgetting that it is not
the eagerness of the appetite, but the soundness of the
digestion which conduces to health and vigour. (Hear,
bear.) And if I might presume to offer an admonitory
suggestion to those for whose benefit popular libraries
and institutes are chiefly designed, it would bo to remind
them that knowledge is infinite, while all that the most
aasiduous can acquire is so limited, that the true student
finds his humility increase in proportion as his informa-
tion expands. (Cheers.) Well, then, you go with me
thus far; go with me further still—when I add that if
there be anything which may occasion anxiety or appre-
hension to a sober judgment, in that demand for general
intellectual culture which makes the remarkable attri•
bute of our times; it is not the fear of knowledge itself,
but it is that pompous and inflated boast of our own au-
p,rior enlightenment, whioh is too often addressed to our
vanity by those who find is an easier and more popular
task to flatter us than to counsel. (Hear, bear.) Know-
ledge and liberty are alike in this, and they, in them-
selves, are never formidable except to their enemies, but
that the nonsense which has been talked about them, is
often very alarming and very discouraging to their best
friends. Knowledge and liberty are designed to be the
safeguards and the directors of our social system—
(hear, hear)—you approve that definition? Pardon then,
a very homely illustration. We do not fear the watch
dog while ho guards the fold end directs the flock, but
we look at him with very great suspicion when we meet
him foaming at the mouth, and rattled out of his wits by
the noise of a tin canister tied to his tail. (Cheers and
laughter.) Look for instance to our neighbours the French
—for the last eighty years they have made such a clat-
ter about all the grand results to be expected from liberty
and enlightenment, that enlightenment and liberty have
been frightened away by the din (cheers), and mon in
that country now seem rather disposed to get rid of the
watchdogs altogether, than to run the risk of having
theta driven into madness by the hollow clang of that
everlasting canister. (Much laughter and applause). Let
us, then, take knowledge as our own great Newton took
it, with a profound conviction that we are humble mor-
tals, of the same size and stature as our ancestors, and if
we appear taller, it is because we climb upon their shoul-
ders. (Hear). Let us gratefully heed every clue which
their resources have bequeathed to us, and let us
modestly confess that much which we now claim as a
certainty, our children may detect as an error (hear).
You remember, perhaps, those beautiful words which
Newton uttered at the close of a life, illustrious for the
most splendid triumphs in the sublimest sphere of phi-
losophy—" I feel (said he) like a child by the seashore,
who has picked up a few stray shells and curious peb-
bles on the sand, while the great ocean of Truth lay all
undiscovered around." And indeed Newton himself is
a striking example how finite a man is, and how infinite
knowledge, for Newton estimated the fixed stars at
3,000, and when Dr. Herschell had completed his great
telescope, how many fixed stars do you think passed
across its field in one short quarter of an hour ? Two
hundred and fifty thousand! (Hear, hear). It is the same
in all things. We of this generation cannot conjecture
the number of lights which the Creator may vouchsafe
to the next. (Hear, hoar). Now from what I have said
in caution against presumption, and too overweening a
conceit in what we of to-day call knowledge, and what
they of to-morrow may call but partial ignorance,—do
not consider that I desire to damp your generous ardour,
or that I deny, I will not boldly say the advantages, but
the moral duty and the social wisdom of bringing within
the reach of all classes of our countrymen that world
of books which teaches us that there aro other enjoy-
ments besides those of the senses. (Applause). For if we
regard books in their effect upon the individual, the soul
can scarcely be said to feel its own diviner nature until
it is made aware how thought can exist independently
of the body. (Cheers). The moment we enter that world
of books the body rests, thought awakens. The soul can
then traverse swifter than light from pole to pole, bring
before it all the ages of the past, and unfettered by time
and space, strengthen and dovelope the powers which
prove its own essence to be immaterial and immortal
(Applause). And if we regard the effect of knowledge
in a social point of view, why the wealth of a nation does
not depend upon the fertility of its soil, the treasures of
its mines, the extent of its dominions, but on the ag-
gregate of the intelligence possessed by its people. It is
intelligence that tills the soil, works the mine, directs
the ship, invents the machine, and suggests those laws
which unite the harmony of order with the energies of
freedom. (Much cheering). And as the material
wealth of a nation is always greatest where wealth
is least hoarded by tho few—so that capital of in-
telligence from which material wealth is produced,
expands in proportion to the width of the surface
over which it is diffused (Applause). It is, there-
fore, our duty as individuals, to afford, as far we can, as
to every human soul facilities for its own developement:
and it is our interest, as a community, to increase and
circulate that fund of ideas from which even our physi-
cal comforts are derived, and by which this small island
of ours silently maintains an empire immeasurably more
vast than the mines of Peru could assure to the kings of
Spain, or their myriads of unlettered serfs can bestow
on the autocrats of Russia. (Loud cheers.) And it is
the consciousness how much the history of the human
mind is, in modern times, identified with the history of
England that induces me earnestly to advise all those
who intend to profit by the facilities for instruction af-
forded by this town of Hertford, to make the history of
their own country a fundamental part of their studies.
History is, indeed, a study which well becomes the men
of our own times. For these times are embroiled by the
perpetual strife between ancient forms and novel ideas ;
aad history, calmly and impartially read, is the safest
arbiter between wise experiments and hazardous innova-
tions. (Applause.) We can scarcely judge soundly of
any of the questions upon which we are divided, by dry
maxims and positive assertions picked up from the jour-
nals of the day, and which would reduce the complicated
art of statesmanship to abstract propositions of Euclid.
It is only by a careful examination of the past that we
can estimate the influence of events on the destinies of
the future. But of all history, that of our own coun-
try is obviously the most useful to Englishmen.
And I am happy to recommend to your notice a work
recently published, which comprises all that can give in-
terest and profit to a mere chronicle of events. I speak
, of the Pictorial History of England, published by Mr.
Charles Knight. Have you got it in your library
[Mr. Crawley: Yes.] Well, in this work you will find
chapters devoted in each great era to the progressive
state of arts, literature, science, commerce, manners,
laws and religion; and in short, all that completes the
record of British civilization. I should say that the
leaning of this history is to what is called the popular
side of the question, but all histories lean to one side or
the other, and this (at least as far as I have examined it)
is seldom grossly partial, and never wilfully distorts
facts or misquotes authorities in support of its views.
Still it is one-sided—and a manly understanding in
search of truth will not be contented to form its judgment
upon partial evidence. Therefore in the more disputable
political eras, I advise you to turn to the page of Hume,
and see what can be said by a philosophical reasoner on
the other side of the question; and even where you differ
from Hume most, and with most justice, you will be in
company with a writer who will increase and refine your
knowledge of your own language, by the charms of a
style perfectly matchless for nervous simplicity and lucid
precision. If the recommendation I thus adventure should
find favour in your eyes, I shall be very happy to offer a
prize to such student, belonging to one of your literary
societies, who shall pass the best examination in some
selected period of our history, comprising views of the
progressive triumphs of those glorious forefathers,
whose legacies have been a literature more splendid
than that of Greece; an empire more colossal than
that of Rome ; and a political constitution which still
towers aloft in majestic symmetry, because the depth of
its foundation has allowed for additions to its structure.
(" Bravo," and enthusiastic and long continued applause.)
I shall detain you no longer, for I do not consider that
we are met here to listen to long speeches, but rather to
mix with each other in social and friendly intercoursleot;e_o
forget for awhile the local contests that have y
_.
agitated both town and county, and to enjoy in
es towlitem]
ing_
turn what politics has not yet succi eded
ab
rate you on the polished commonwealth of equality and fraternity.
atul
(Much cheering.) I must, however,
tong
the various objects that
please thehe eye and
must congratu-
ce ag
onnd captivate the
g
taste which you have got t
late you especially(Cheers.)l one ante
ladies
.t popnar
ornament of all, the presenceb
of sotean
to take an interest in whatever
Indeed they do wisely
tends to secur
their own
more I
h g :_omitiemetaicteateitsfluenc over our
e man—e nothing
ruder sex. Nothing
more en
dears tho fireside
than the habits and tastes of
literature.
And if wo remount to the origin of litera-
ture in all countries, wo must ascribe it to that sentiment
which woman inspires and refines ; for literature has
ever commenced with poetry, and a great Germau
writer has happily said, "that the earliest poet must
have been the earliest lover." (Cheers.) Gentlemen,
I shall now conclude by reading to you the discrimi-
nating words by which Bacon has prefaced and enforced
the sentiment, which I have undertaken to convey.
Thu greatest error of all is the mistaking or misplacing.
of the last or farthest end of knowledge, as if there
were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to rest a
searching and restless spirit ; or a terrace for a wander-
ing and variable mind to walk up and down with a fait
prospect ; or a tower of state for a prcud mind to raise
itself upon ; or a fort or commanding ground for strife
and contention, or a shop for profit or sale. And not
(mark the words that follow and define the true erd of
knowledge, and as such I recommend it to you)—a rich
storehouse for the glory of the Creator and the relief of
men's estate." (Prolongued and enthusiastic cheering.)