The mirror., 1919-09-25
KNOWLEDGE, CAUSE OF INEFFICIENCY
Ia Popular Deuson Based the Belief That "A Little
knowledge is Dangerous Thing"
Current Opinion.

With what an imperfect know
ledge of geography and insignifi-
cant ships did Columbus cross the
sea! With what ignorance of dra-
matics did Shakespeare perfect his
plays! Raphael gained an immor-
tai reputation, but his knowledge
of craftsmanship would put him
in the back row of a modern stu
dio. The ignorance of Titan as
to proper coloring would cause
contempt in almost any studio of
Greenwich Village Leonardo da
Vinci and Rembrandt knew less
about the science of lighting that
the commonest sketcher knows as
if by rote."
From such examples one may
we'll conclude that it is more by
lack of knowledge than by the
possession of it that men have
been able to become the pioneers
in science. art and philosophy. The
more we learn, the less, by a sort
of paradox familiar enough, we
actually know. Our knowledge is
too much for our brains.
The mystery of this situation,
the reality of which is not open to
doubt, appears in the fact that
knowledge is an affair both of
quantity and of quality. Thus it
is not how much we know but
what kind of truths we possess
which will afford us an insight in
to the way the world is constituted
and the form which art should
take. In general our knowledge
is not so much a direct knowledge
of things as a miscellaneous know
ledge about things.
The ancients knew the world.
We have science of physics. One
may run through all the depart
ments of human knowledge at this
time and see the same misunder-
standing of a difference which is
vital-the knowledge of a thing
and the tumble of knowledge about
a thing, the miscellaneous sample
of this bit of knowledge and of
that without any knowledge as a
! whole in bulk.
The application of man know
ledge to his own life has not been
such as to commend the great dis
coveries which man has made.
When we consider what war can
be, are we glad that science has
shown us how to manufacture
dynamite, trinitrotoluene. or the
various gases which German chem
istry tried out on the men in the
trenchesa Are we better off for
steel enterprise which consum-
mated in such things as U-boatsg
Are we happier since we learned
that the guns natural kick can be
turned into the familiar operations
of the machine gun? After read
ing such work as The Four
Horsemen of the Apocalypse,'
where the wonders of modern sur
gerry present picture of frag-
ments of men from the dissecting
room saved by the audacities of
SCIENCE one may even question
whether the amelioratlng work of
medicine. which art has tried to
keep pace. with the art of destruc-
tion, has been of real benefit to
mankind. We may be in posi-
tion where we know more than is
good for us.
I'm addition to knowledge,
there is also the attitude of the
mind toward what one had come to
know. A man limits the amount
of food he will eat, the quantity of
exercise he will take, the extent to
which he will enjoy pleasure. Why
should he not be as absteminous,
as critical with his brain, and the
amount of ideas he will take into
his head2 At any rate, one should
be careful to distinguish between
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