I come now, to the general arguments used by the Quakers against human learning, the first of which is, that they who possess it are too apt to reduce religion to reason, and to strip it of the influence of the Spirit. But this is contrary, as a general position, to all fact. We find no mention of this in history. The fathers of the church were the most eminent for learning in their own days, and these insisted upon the Influence of the Spirit in spiritual concerns, as one of the first articles of their faith. The reformers, who succeeded these, were men of extensive erudition also, and acknowledged the same great principle. And nine-tenths, I believe, of the Christians of the present, day, among whom we ought to reckon nine-tenths of the men of learning also, adopt a similar creed. Another general argument is, that learning is apt to lead to conceit and pride, or to a presumed superiority of intellect, in consequence of which men raise themselves in their own estimation, and look down upon others as creatures of an inferior order of race. To this I may answer, that as prodigies are daily produced in nature, though they may be but as one to a hundred thousand when compared with the perfect things of their own kind, so such phenomena may occasionally make their appearance in the world. But as far as my own experience goes, I believe the true tendency of learning to be quite the reverse. I believe the most learned to be generally the most humble, and to be the most sensible of their own ignorance. Men, in the course of their studies, daily find something new. Every thing new shews them only their former ignorance, and how much there is yet to learn. The more they persevere, in their researches, the more they acknowledge the latter fact. The longer they live, the more they lament the shortness of life, during which, man with all his industry, can attain so little, and that, when he is but just beginning to know, he is cut off. They see, in short, their own nothingness, and, however they may be superior in their attainments, they are convinced that their knowledge is, after all, but a shadow; that it is but darkness; that it is but the absence of light; and that it no sooner begins to assume an appearance than it is gone.