SUPERFICIAL KNOWLEDGE.
MR. BALFOITR'S delightful Rectorial address at St. Andrews reminds ue that we have a Chief Secretary who is no less remarkable for dexterity of mind than he is for strength of character. The English language wants a word to describe accurately a mental attitude such as Mr. Balfour's. To call it cynical, is to restrict and degrade it. To describe it as common-sense, is to leave out of account half its keenness and penetration, and all its charm. The man who here with a touch of humour, there with one of genuine intui- tion, and always with the rarest literary perception, brushes away the cobwebs of pedantry and affectation from the ideals of study and knowledge, as did Mr. Balfour at St. Andrews, is not measured when he is described either as taking up the cynical or the common-sense point of view. " Intellectual tact" is perhaps the nearest phrase by which to describe the power displayed by Mr. Balfour in meeting the cant of the day in regard to education and study. Of course, the phrase does not cover the whole ground, but at least it represents his power of seeing things in their true light.
The subject to which Mr. Balfour applied his intellectual tact on Saturday last, was nominally the enjoyment to be derived from books by the ordinary reader. In reality, he covered wider ground, and entered on the general question of superficial knowledge. Delightful was the treatment of this part of his theme, and the attack upon Mr. Harrison, with his index expurgatorial', and his anathemas against " an impotent voracity for desultory information." "I have often heard," said Mr. Balfour, "of the individual whose excellent natural gifts have been so overloaded with huge masses of undigested and indigestible learning, that they have had no chance of healthy development. -Bet though I have often heard of this personage, I have never met him, and I believe him to be mythical." Very happy, too, was Mr. Balfour when dwelling upon what he described as the pernicious maxim that superficial knowledge is worse than no knowledge at all. Of course, if superficial knowledge means incorrect knowledge—that is, not knowledge at all—the maxim is true enough. If, however, superficial knowledge means only a small amount of knowledge, the maxim is indeed a pernicious one. A little knowledge on a great many subjects will certainly conduce more to happiness and enjoyment, and will better render a man's mind wide and liberal in tone, and so free from the prejudices of ignorance, than a great deal of knowledge on one subject alone, Of coarse, too, there is no necessity for such alternatives. The man who knows as much as possible on some one subject seldom, in fact, neglects to cultivate a little knowledge on many others. Knowledge ought not to be and cannot be divided off by sectional barriers. Mr. Balfour's method of dealing with what is called useless knowledge was no less happy than his apology for superficial knowledge. He noticed the people who seem to think that a fact which is not an illustration of a law, or is supposed not to be illustrative, has lost all its value. " Incidents which do not fit into some great generalisation, events which are merely picturesque, details which are merely curious, they dis- miss as unworthy the interest of a reasoning being." Mr. Balfour might assuredly have dwelt with even more severity than he did on the arrogance and futility of those who undertake to say what knowledge is useless and what is not.
It is difficult to touch on all the points of view afforded by Mr. Balfour in his address. One or two instances of real humour must, however, be quoted, not because they are exactly apposite to our purpose here, but because they are too good in them- selves to be passed over. What could be more charming than the dictum, "True dullness is seldom acquired; it is a natural grace"?—or than the picture of that " class of readers, fitting objects of our commiseration, who may be often recognised by their habit of asking some adviser for a list of books, and then marking out a scheme of study in the course of which all these are to be conscientiously perused. These unfortunate persons apparently read a book principally with the object of getting to the end of it. They reach the word 'Finis' with the same sensation of triumph as an Indian feels who strings a fresh scalp to his girdle."
If we look at the whole subject treated by Mr. Balfour with so much brilliancy and point, as widely as possible, does it, in truth, not come to the question, What is the primary object of ordinary reading or study ?' putting aside, of course, that kind of study which has some ulterior object, such as passing an examination. Undoubtedly, it is the enjoyment to be obtained by the possession and acquirement of knowledge. What, then, we must ask next, is the easiest way of attaining knowledge, since the attainment of knowledge is the end in view P Undoubtedly, knowledge is most easily attained in those subjects which we like most, and take most interest in. A man acquires information infinitely more quickly where he is in- terested, than where he not interested. Who can remember the book that bored him P How many men, after years have elapsed, retain the recollection of some reading that happened to be interesting, though the subject was strange and difficult P If, then, a man wishes to acquire knowledge on the beat terms, he must choose those subjects in which be has a natural interest. In fact, he must read what he likes, and must beware the toils of the doctrinaires who would give him a list of the hundred best books, fifty of which, perhaps, he would be forced to read without being able to call up the faintest interest from beginning to end. Now, it happens, with the ordinary man, what interests him at one time does not interest him at another. His interests change with the changes that are going on around him in the world. He sees some natural curiosity, reads something in the newspapers, hears of some incident or character in history, or goes to some place which awakens his interest and attention, and induces him to read. If the ordinary man, then, is to read what interests him, he is pretty sure to read widely, and therefore necessarily, since life is short, superficially. He will perform the process which Mr. Harrison is said to describe as " gorging and enfeebling his intellect." A new electric invention is brought out, and be gorges himself with a superficial study of the laws of electricity. A barrow is opened near where he lives, and he reads up the last book on primitive man. Mr. Gladstone, in his adroitness in the use of language, is compared to Lord Shelburne, and he betakes himself to the memoirs of the time, perhaps even to the " Rolliad." Now, can it be said that the man who reads like this, with freshness and vigour, eager to find out something, to get light on a subject dark to him before, will not get more knowledge, and so benefit himself vastly more, than the man who, with slow and painful steps, wearily plods through a list of books, though that list has on it all the masterpieces of creation ? He reads them, perhaps, with frigid conscientiousness to the end ; but his senses are benumbed, and that light which real interest would have put on every page does not burn for him. What is the result P Exactly the opposite of what the doctrinaire who recommended the list desired. The man who has been reading, not because he liked the books on his list, but because he wanted to have read them, will only have acquired knowledge which is cold, dead, flunk- minating, perfunctory ; while the superficial reader, however varied and incongruous his studies, whatever he may have lost by want of method, will at least have gained a knowledge which is living and real. It is only that knowledge which is got with passion, and that is itself alive, which can quicken the human spirit. Were one asked,' Will you spend six weeks (other things being equal) with a superficial reader who has read ten thousand volumes at will, or with a self-improvement reader, who has all his life steadily perused advice-lists from half the great men of the day P'—would it be possible to hesitate a moment P Would any one fail to choose the growing plant, even though it might torn out to be stunted and neglected, rather than the well-pre- served, dried, dead flower ? Since it hardly belongs to the main thread of our subject, we have reserved for mention till the last Mr. Balfour's remarks on the position of contemporary poetry. Contemporary poetry, he says in effect, has, and most have, for the generation which pro- duces it, certain qualities not likely to be possessed by any other. Dwelling on this point again, Mr. Balfour says :—" Wherever what may be called ' historic sympathy' is required, there will be some diminution of the enjoyment which those must have felt who were the poet's contemporaries." That this is not only extremely well put, but perfectly true, we cannot imagine it possible to doubt. Poetry, if it is to be enjoyed emotionally, depends for its effect upon association. As was finely said, we think by Mr. Frederic Myers, words may in themselves become centres of emotional force. They can, however, for the generality of mankind only acquire this force from the associations of daily life, though no doubt, with a few deeply read echelon, words have their literary as well as their natural emotional associations. Now, language is in its very nature so volatile and changeable, that it is never quite the same in one generation as in another. We express ourselves differently from our fathers, notwith- standing that the difference cannot be exactly ganged. There are turns of thought and shades of expression which were living then, that are cold and dead now. The poetry, then, which appeals to us most in the emotional as contrasted with the artistic and literary sense, is the poetry which has taken to itself most intimately the words, phrases, and turns of thought calling up those associations which are most our own. In other words, contemporary verse, just because it is nearest to us, touches us most deeply.
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