It
is true, Solomon will praise knowing: "Understanding is a well-spring of
life unto him that hath it."[439] And in the New Testament, again, Jesus
Christ is a "light,"[440] and "truth makes us free."[441] It is true,
Aristotle will undervalue knowing: "In what concerns virtue," says he,
"three things are necessary--knowledge, deliberate will, and
perseverance; but, whereas the two last are all-important, the first is
a matter of little importance."[442] It is true that with the same
impatience with which St. James enjoins a man to be not a forgetful
hearer, but a _doer of the work_,[443] Epictetus[444] exhorts us to _do_
what we have demonstrated to ourselves we ought to do; or he taunts us
with futility, for being armed at all points to prove that lying is
wrong, yet all the time continuing to lie. It is true, Plato, in words
which are almost the words of the New Testament or the Imitation, calls
life a learning to die.[445] But underneath the superficial agreement
the fundamental divergence still subsists.
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