§ XXXI. There is, indeed, much difference in this respect between the
tendencies of different branches of knowledge; it being a sure rule that
exactly in proportion as they are inferior, nugatory, or limited in
scope, their power of feeding pride is greater. Thus philology, logic,
rhetoric, and the other sciences of the schools, being for the most part
ridiculous and trifling, have so pestilent an effect upon those who are
devoted to them, that their students cannot conceive of any higher
sciences than these, but fancy that all education ends in the knowledge
of words: but the true and great sciences, more especially natural
history, make men gentle and modest in proportion to the largeness of
their apprehension, and just perception of the infiniteness of the
things they can never know. And this, it seems to me, is the principal
lesson we are intended to be caught by the book of Job; for there God
has thrown open to us the heart of a man most just and holy, and
apparently perfect in all things possible to human nature except
humility. For this he is tried: and we are shown that no suffering, no
self-examination, however honest, however stern, no searching out of the
heart by its own bitterness, is enough to convince man of his
nothingness before God; but that the sight of God's creation will do it.
For, when the Deity himself has willed to end the temptation, and to
accomplish in Job that for which it was sent, He does not vouchsafe to
reason with him, still less does He overwhelm him with terror, or
confound him by laying open before his eyes the book of his iniquities.
He opens before him only the arch of the dayspring, and the fountains of
the deep; and amidst the covert of the reeds, and on the heaving waves,
He bids him watch the kings of the children of pride,--"Behold now
Behemoth, which I made with thee:" And the work is done.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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