y.
Where we must act it is our duty to know all that we can know, and if,
because we cannot collect all the information that we should wish to
possess, we refuse to collect that information which we can obtain,
because we realise that it will be incomplete, we commit a serious moral
and intellectual crime. If we can know only one factor out of one
hundred, we offend if we refuse to know that one. We must act. We have
no right to shut our eyes to knowledge which ought to guide our action
because we are aware that action taken on that one factor will be
insufficiently guided. The one factor is an important one and must
influence our action, and would influence our action if we knew all the
other factors. We ought to allow it to influence our action even in
ignorance of the other factors.

In daily life we habitually act on partial knowledge, and we should
think that man mad who urged us to refuse to be guided by our partial
knowledge until our knowledge was complete; we should think a man mad
who, being under necessity to act, refused to know what he could know,
because he was aware that fuller knowledge might lead him to modify his
action. Now missionaries and missionary societies are acting and must
act, and the refusal to collect the information which they can obtain is
as culpable as the ignorance of a man who refuses to attend to the one
word "poison" printed on the label of a bottle which he can read,
because he cannot read the name of the stuff written on the label.

Yet it is very commonly argued that unless survey can be made complete,
unless, that is, every factor which we can think of as exercising an
influence on our action is duly weighed, it is futile to survey the
larger, commoner, and more easily accessible factors. This objection
recurs again and again, and unless it can be put out of the way it must
prejudice missionary survey. It would be wise, it would be right, to
collect information on only one point, if that were all that we could
do. It would be better than to rest content with total ignorance.
Nevertheless, when anyone collects with care statistics on any
particular point, he is certain to meet the objection that his labour
ought to be ignored because he has not collected information about
something else. As if total ignorance were preferable to partial
knowledge! Is there any answer to the argument, that "Where ignorance is
bliss 'tis folly to be wise," when supported by "A little knowledge is a