owledge is
Power._--Bacon.'"

RICCABOCCA.--"Bacon make such an aphorism! The last man in the world to
have said any thing so pert and so shallow."

LEONARD (astonished).--"Do you mean to say, sir, that that aphorism is
not in Lord Bacon! Why, I have seen it quoted as his in almost every
newspaper, and in almost every speech in favor of popular education."

RICCABOCCA.--"Then that should be a warning to you never again to fall
into the error of the would-be scholar--viz., quote second-hand. Lord
Bacon wrote a great book to show in what knowledge is power, how that
power should be defined, in what it might be mistaken. And, pray, do you
think so sensible a man would ever have taken the trouble to write a
great book upon the subject, if he could have packed up all he had to
say into the portable dogma, 'Knowledge is power?' Pooh! no such
aphorism is to be found in Bacon from the first page of his writings to
the last."

PARSON (candidly).--"Well, I supposed it was Lord Bacon's, and I am very
glad to hear that the aphorism has not the sanction of his authority."

LEONARD (recovering his surprise).--"But why so?"

PARSON.--"Because it either says a great deal too much, or just--nothing
at all."

LEONARD.--"At least, sir, it seems to me undeniable."

PARSON.--"Well, grant that it is undeniable. Does it prove much in favor
of knowledge? Pray, is not ignorance power too?"

RICCABOCCA.--"And a power that has had much the best end of the
quarter-staff."

PARSON.--"All evil is power, and does its power make it any thing the
better?"

RICCABOCCA.--"Fanaticism is power--and a power that has often swept away
knowledge like a whirlwind. The Mussulman burns the library of a
world--and forces the Koran and the sword from the schools of Byzantium
to the colleges of Hindostan."

PARSON (bearing on with a new column of illustration).--"Hunger is
power. The barbarians, starved out of their energy by their own swarming
population, swept into Italy and annihilated letters. The Romans,
however degraded, had more knowledge, at least, than the Gaul and the
Visigoth."

RICCABOCCA (bringing up the reserve).--"And even in Greece, when Greek
met Greek, the Athenians--our masters in all knowledge--were beat by the
Spartans, who held learning in contempt."

PARSON.--"Wherefore you see, Leonard, that though knowledge be power, it
is only _one_ of the powers of the world; that there are others as
strong, and often much stronger; and t