t performing dogs never
carry their tails; such dogs have eaten of the tree of knowledge, and are
convinced of sin accordingly--they know that they know things, in respect
of which, therefore, they are no longer under grace, but under the law,
and they have yet so much grace left as to be ashamed. So with the human
clever dog; he may speak with the tongues of men and angels, but so long
as he knows that he knows, his tail will droop.

More especially does this hold in the case of those who are born to
wealth and of old family. We must all feel that a rich young nobleman
with a taste for science and principles is rarely a pleasant object. We
do not understand the rich young man in the Bible who wanted to inherit
eternal life, unless, indeed, he merely wanted to know whether there was
not some way by which he could avoid dying, and even so he is hardly
worth considering. Principles are like logic, which never yet made a
good reasoner of a bad one, but might still be occasionally useful if
they did not invariably contradict each other whenever there is any
temptation to appeal to them. They are like fire, good servants but bad
masters. As many people or more have been wrecked on principle as from
want of principle. They are, as their name implies, of an elementary
character, suitable for beginners only, and he who has so little mastered
them as to have occasion to refer to them consciously, is out of place in
the society of well-educated people. The truly scientific invariably
hate him, and, for the most part, the more profoundly in proportion to
the unconsciousness with which they do so.

If the reader hesitates, let him go down into the streets and look in the
shop-windows at the photographs of eminent men, whether literary,
artistic, or scientific, and note the work which the consciousness of
knowledge has wrought on nine out of every ten of them; then let him go
to the masterpieces of Greek and Italian art, the truest preachers of the
truest gospel of grace; let him look at the Venus of Milo, the
Discobolus, the St. George of Donatello. If it had pleased these people
to wish to study, there was no lack of brains to do it with; but imagine
"what a deal of scorn" would "look beautiful in the contempt and anger"
of the Venus of Milo's lip if it were suggested to her that she should
learn to read. Which, think you, knows most, the Theseus, or any modern
professor taken at random? True, learning must have a great