profess a different view of the
matter, and even act upon it. Every now and then you will find a person of
vigorous or fertile mind, who relies upon his own resources, despises all
former authors, and gives the world, with the utmost fearlessness, his
views upon religion, or history, or any other popular subject. And his
works may sell for a while; he may get a name in his day; but this will be
all. His readers are sure to find on the long run that his doctrines are
mere theories, and not the expression of facts, that they are chaff
instead of bread, and then his popularity drops as suddenly as it rose.

Knowledge then is the indispensable condition of expansion of mind, and
the instrument of attaining to it; this cannot be denied, it is ever to be
insisted on; I begin with it as a first principle; however, the very truth
of it carries men too far, and confirms to them the notion that it is the
whole of the matter. A narrow mind is thought to be that which contains
little knowledge; and an enlarged mind, that which holds a great deal; and
what seems to put the matter beyond dispute is, the fact of the great
number of studies which are pursued in a University, by its very
profession. Lectures are given on every kind of subject; examinations are
held; prizes awarded. There are moral, metaphysical, physical Professors;
Professors of languages, of history, of mathematics, of experimental
science. Lists of questions are published, wonderful for their range and
depth, variety and difficulty; treatises are written, which carry upon
their very face the evidence of extensive reading or multifarious
information; what then is wanting for mental culture to a person of large
reading and scientific attainments? what is grasp of mind but acquirement?
where shall philosophical repose be found, but in the consciousness and
enjoyment of large intellectual possessions?

And yet this notion is, I conceive, a mistake, and my present business is
to show that it is one, and that the end of a Liberal Education is not
mere knowledge, or knowledge considered in its _matter_; and I shall best
attain my object, by actually setting down some cases, which will be
generally granted to be instances of the process of enlightenment or
enlargement of mind, and others which are not, and thus, by the
comparison, you will be able to judge for yourselves, Gentlemen, whether
Knowledge, that is, acquirement, is after all the real principle of the
enlargement,