[Footnote 15: Cap. 51. v. 6. and Cap. 64. v. 10.]

* * * * *

No. 379. Thursday, May 15, 1712. Budgell.

'Scire tuum nihil est nisi te scire hoc sciat alter.'

Pers.

I have often wondered at that ill-natur'd Position which has been
sometimes maintained in the Schools, and is comprizd in an old Latin
Verse, namely, that A Man's Knowledge is worth nothing, if he
communicates what he knows to any one besides. [1] There is certainly no
more sensible Pleasure to a good-natur'd Man, than if he can by any
means gratify or inform the Mind of another. I might add, that this
Virtue naturally carries its own reward along with it, since it is
almost impossible it should be exercised without the Improvement of the
Person who practices it. The reading of Books, and the daily Occurrences
of Life, are continually furnishing us with Matter for Thought and
Reflection. It is extremely natural for us to desire to see such our
Thoughts put into the Dress of Words, without which indeed we can scarce
have a clear and distinct Idea of them our selves: When they are thus
clothed in Expressions, nothing so truly shews us whether they are just
or false, as those Effects which they produce in the Minds of others.

I am apt to flatter my self, that in the Course of these my
Speculations, I have treated of several Subjects, and laid down many
such Rules for the Conduct of a Man's Life, which my Readers were either
wholly ignorant of before, or which at least those few who were
acquainted with them, looked upon as so many Secrets they have found out
for the Conduct of themselves, but were resolved never to have made
publick.

I am the more confirmed in this Opinion from my having received several
Letters, wherein I am censur'd for having prostituted Learning to the
Embraces of the Vulgar, and made her, as one of my Correspondents
phrases it, a common Strumpet: I am charged by another with laying open
the Arcana, or Secrets of Prudence, to the Eyes of every Reader.

The narrow Spirit which appears in the Letters of these my
Correspondents is the less surprizing, as it has shewn itself in all
Ages: There is still extant an Epistle written by Alexander the Great to
his Tutor Aristotle, upon that Philosopher's publishing some part of his
Writings; in which the Prince complains of his having made known to all
the World, those Secrets in Learning which he had