They know that the days are coming when the light will enter their
prison house, and flash in its dimmest recess; when the light they
sought in vain, will be there to search out the secrets they are
forbid. They know that the day is coming, when the disciple himself,
all tutored in the art of their tradition, bringing with him the key
of its delivery, shall be there to unlock those locked-up meanings, to
spell out those anagrams, to read those hieroglyphics, to unwind with
patient loving research to its minutest point, that text, that with
such tools as the most watchful tyranny would give them, they will yet
contrive to leave there. They know that their buried words are seeds,
and though they lie long in the earth, they will yet spring up with
their 'richer and bolder meanings,' and publish on every breeze, their
boldest mystery.
For let not men of narrower natures fancy that such action is not
proper to the larger one, and cannot be historical. For there are
different _kinds_ of men, our _science_ of men tells us, and that is
an unscientific judgment which omits 'the _particular addition_, that
bounteous nature hath closed in each,'--her 'addition to the bill that
writes them all alike.' For there is a kind of men 'whose minds are
proportioned to that which may be dispatched at once, or within a
short return of time, and there is another kind, whose minds are
proportioned to that which begins afar off, and is to be won with
length of pursuit,'--so the Coryphæus of those choir that the latter
kind compose, informs us, 'so that there may be fitly said to be a
_longanimity_, which is commonly also ascribed to God as a
magnanimity.'
And our English philosophers had to light what this one calls a new
'Lamp of Tradition,' before they could make sure of transmitting their
new science, through such mediums as those that their time gave them;
and a very gorgeous many-branched lamp it is, that the great English
philosopher brings out from that 'secret school of living Learning and
living Art' to which he secretly belongs, for the admiration of the
professionally learned of his time, and a very lustrous one too, as it
will yet prove to be, when once it enters the scholar's apprehension
that it was ever meant be lighted, when once the little movement that
turns on the dazzling jet is ordered.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account