The scholar's sorrow.
In these closing paragraphs of his treatise the writer reveals his own feelings, and draws upon his own experience. It is interesting to observe how largely study was pursued and literature cultivated at the remote period when this book was written; and it is obvious to remark how far more strikingly these reflections apply to an age like our own, and to a state of society such as that in which we live. The diffusion of education tends to the multiplication of books and to the increase of the learned professions; whilst growing civilization fosters the habit of introspection, and consequently of that melancholy whose earlier and simpler symptoms are observable in the language of this touching passage.
I. STUDY AND LITERATURE ARE A NECESSITY OF EDUCATED HUMAN NATURE. As soon as men begin to reflect, they begin to embody their reflections in a literary form, whether of poetry or of prose. A native impulse to verbal expression of thought and feeling, or the desire of sympathy and applause, or the calculating regard for maintenance, leads to the devotion of ever-growing bodies of men to the literary life. Literature is an unmistakable "note" of human culture.
II. STUDY AND LITERATURE ARE, BROADLY SPEAKING, PROMOTIVE OF THE GENERAL GOOD. The few toil that the many may profit. Knowledge, thought, art, right feeling, liberty, and peace, are all indebted to the great thinkers and authors whose names are held in honor among men. Doubtless there are those who misuse their gifts, who by their writings pander to vice, incite to crime, and encourage irreligion. But the bulk of literature, proceeding from the better class of minds, is rather contributive to the furtherance of goodness and of the best interests of men. Books are among the greatest of human blessings.
III. STUDY AND LITERATURE HAVE BEEN CONSECRATED TO THE SERVICE OF RELIGION. We have but to refer to the Hebrew Scriptures themselves in proof of this. There is nothing more marvelous in history than the production of the Books of Moses, the Psalms, and the prophetic writings, at the epochs from which they date. Lawgivers, seers, psalmists, and sages live yet in their peerless writings; some of them inimitable in literary form, all of them instinct with moral power. The New Testament furnishes a yet more marvelous illustration of the place which literature holds in the religious life of humanity. Men have sneered at the supposition that a book revelation could be possible; but their sneers are answered by the facts. Whatever view we take of inspiration, we are constrained to allow for human gifts of authorship. To make up the sacred volume there are "many books," and every one of them is the fruit of "much study."
IV. STUDY AND LITERATURE ARE CULTIVATED AT THE EXPENSE OF THE EXHAUSTION AND SORROW OF THE PRODUCER AND STUDENT.
1. There is weariness of the flesh arising from the close connection between body and mind. The brain, being the central physical organ of language, is, in a sense, the instrument of thought; and, consequently, brain-weariness, nerve-exhaustion, are familiar symptoms among the ardent students to whom we are all indebted for the discovery, the formulation, and the communication of truth and knowledge.
2. But there is a mental sorrow and distress which deeper thinkers cannot always escape, and by which some among them are oppressed. The vast range of what in itself can be known is such as to strike the mind with dismay. Science, history, philosophy, etc; have made progress so marvelous, that no single finite mind can embrace, in the course of a life of study, however assiduous, more than a minute department, so as to know all of it that may be known; and a highly educated man Is content "to know something of everything, and every thing of-something.
3. Then beyond the realm accessible to human inquiry lies the vaster realm of what cannot be known—what is altogether outside our ken.
4. It must be borne in mind, further, that, whilst man's intellect is limited, his spiritual yearnings are insatiable: no bounds can be set to his aspirations; his nature is akin to that of God himself, Thus it is that sorrow often shades the scholar's brow, and that to the weariness of the flesh there is added the sadness of the spirit, that finds, in the memorable language of Pascal, the larger the circle of the known, the vaster is the circumference of the unknown that stretches beyond.—T.