cians have arisen from
their not observing this; namely, that the intellect, going through the
same processes, is yet mean or noble according to the matter it deals
with, and wastes itself away in mere rotatory motion, if it be set to
grind straws and dust. If we reason only respecting words, or lines, or
any trifling and finite things, the reason becomes a contemptible
faculty; but reason employed on holy and infinite things, becomes
herself holy and infinite. So that, by work of the soul, I mean the
reader always to understand the work of the entire immortal creature,
proceeding from a quick, perceptive, and eager heart, perfected by the
intellect, and finally dealt with by the hands, under the direct
guidance of these higher powers.

Sec. VIII. And now observe, the first important consequence of our
fully understanding this preeminence of the soul, will be the due
understanding of that subordination of knowledge respecting which so
much has already been said. For it must be felt at once, that the
increase of knowledge, merely as such, does not make the soul larger or
smaller; that, in the sight of God, all the knowledge man can gain is as
nothing: but that the soul, for which the great scheme of redemption was
laid, be it ignorant or be it wise, is all in all; and in the activity,
strength, health, and well-being of this soul, lies the main difference,
in His sight, between one man and another. And that which is all in all
in God's estimate is also, be assured, all in all in man's labor; and to
have the heart open, and the eyes clear, and the emotions and thoughts
warm and quick, and not the knowing of this or the other fact, is the
state needed for all mighty doing in this world. And therefore finally,
for this, the weightiest of all reasons, let us take no pride in our
knowledge. We may, in a certain sense, be proud of being immortal; we
may be proud of being God's children; we may be proud of loving,
thinking, seeing, and of all that we are by no human teaching: but not
of what we have been taught by rote; not of the ballast and freight of
the ship of the spirit, but only of its pilotage, without which all the
freight will only sink it faster, and strew the sea more richly with
its ruin. There is not at this moment a youth of twenty, having received
what we moderns ridiculously call education, but he knows more of
everything, except the soul, than Plato or St. Paul did; but he is not
for that reason a greater man,