G. A great many, I suppose. P. For example, you would not choose to understand by experience the horror of a guilty conscience after the commission of a great crime! G. God forbid ! P. You would not stoop to understand how to cut out a piece of check for sailors shirts so as to make it yield the greatest profit to the slopseller! G. I would not, unless I were a slopseller. P. Observe, at this window, a dispute now agitating in the shrubbery between the gardener and his boy. You would not choose to investigate the cause of his shaking the hoe at the boy? G. It's not worth my attention. P. There are, then, some mysteries so painful, and others so insignificant, that you beg leave to have no acquaintance with them? G. Certainly. P. And you do not think the worse of yourself for your ignorance? G. Quite the contrary. I prize my condition the more, because it does not expose me to the necessity of acquiring such low information at a price so dear. P. Are there no secrets worth knowing? G. A great many no doubt. Why else are young gentlemen educated, why are some put apprentices or articled clerks? P. Is there any one of these a mystery in its own nature, or are they all mysterious by accident? G. Pardon me, sir, I am not master of the ques P. Let us take it to pieces. Is there not a mystery in ship-building? G. To me there is. P. And in navigating a vessel to the East or West Indies? G. To me undoubtedly, for I have neither received tuition, nor employed my time about these subjects. I have neither served a ship-wright, nor been a voyage. P. This is what I mean. If these subjects be unknown to you, it is not because they are in themselves inexplicable and unattainable, for this would be a mystery in the nature of the subjects, and then nobody could understand them; but it is because you have not turned your attention to them, and this I call mystery by accident. G. Am I then to suppose myself capable of understanding every thing? P. Is your eye capable of seeing every thing? P. Is every sense of your body capable of receiving all sorts of impressions belonging to each sense? G. It is with each sense as it is with my hearing. The same ear, that hears you speak, can hear all sorts of sounds from the roar of thunder down to the softest breeze. P. Apply this to our subject. Every branch of knowledge is referable to some power of the mind, poetry to fancy, languages to memory, and so on: now if you have the mental power proper to one subject, you have the power, or ability, or capacity, call it what you please to attain all subjects belonging to that power. G. Do I understand you, sir? The same memory, that retains greek, would retain hebrew, arabick, welch, and all other languages, had I inclination, time and tuition to pursue them? P. Just so. G. I perceive then, there are many secrets worth knowing; but which I have no inclination to know, because my life is short; and I have no immediate business with them. P. In your choice of knowledge, then, you would select important articles, would you? G. What opinion would you form of my prudence, Sir, if I did not? P. An opinion not much to your honour, George. But give me leave to put your skill to proof, by requiring you to inform me what art you think the most deserving of a young gentleman's attention? G. I have heard my uncle say, the art of governing, Sir. P. And do you think so? G. I should think so, if people at my humble distance might presume to smatter a little about a science so profound. P. Good George, where did you learn this unmanly style? I fear you keep bad company. You talk the language of broken spirited slaves living under arbitrary governors, where the people are nursled to think themselves beasts, and their tyrants almighty gods. This is smuggled, this is not British, George. G. Pardon me, Sir, I speak as I think. P. Pray what humble distance is that you talk of? The distance between the governors and the governed in a free nation is exactly the same as that between lessee and lessor. G. I own I have understood, Sir, that there is, in all kingdoms impliedly, and in our kingdom expressly, a mutual compact between prince and people. P. Very well. Where is the immense distance then? G. Is not government a profound mystery, Sir? P. You said there was a compact between prince and people? G. I did. P. What is a compact? G. An agreement, a contract. P. When two or more persons make an agreement, do not both parties thoroughly understand the terms? G. If either did not it would be accounted fraudulent. P. Suppose a company, the East-India company for example, to contract for so many ton of shipping, ought not both the company and the contractor to bargain in clear explicit, terms, intelligible to both parties? G. Undoubtedly. P. Suppose it does not suit all the company to take a personal concern in making the contract? G. They would employ some few of themselves a committee to transact the business. P. Whence do this committee derive ability to make this contract? G. From their own personal qualifications. They are to be supposed men conversant in this sort of business. P. Who is to judge of their ability? G. The company that employ them, P. And whence do they derive power to exercise this ability in the name, and for the benefit of the whole company? G. From the appointment of the whole company. P. Is the company then at a humble distance from the contracting parties? G. The company are their employers, I ceive, per P. Do not the company retain a right of judging whether these parties discharge their trust? G. Assuredly. P. Is there any mystery in all this? G. If I choose not to concern myself about it there is. Not otherwise. P. You think you could obtain the knowledge of ship-timber, naval stores, prices of workmanship, and so on, if you applied yourself to these subjects? G. I am sure I could, because the men, who do understand them, have no more bodily senses, no more mental faculties than I have, and the only advantage they have over me is application. .S |