u have of it, the greater will be the load. The learning of
a Salmasius or a Burman, unless you are its master, will be your tyrant.
"Imperat aut servit;" if you can wield it with a strong arm, it is a great
weapon; otherwise,

Vis consili expers
Mole ruit sua.

You will be overwhelmed, like Tarpeia, by the heavy wealth which you have
exacted from tributary generations.

Instances abound; there are authors who are as pointless as they are
inexhaustible in their literary resources. They measure knowledge by bulk,
as it lies in the rude block, without symmetry, without design. How many
commentators are there on the Classics, how many on Holy Scripture, from
whom we rise up, wondering at the learning which has passed before us, and
wondering why it passed! How many writers are there of Ecclesiastical
History, such as Mosheim or Du Pin, who, breaking up their subject into
details, destroy its life, and defraud us of the whole by their anxiety
about the parts! The Sermons, again, of the English Divines in the
seventeenth century, how often are they mere repertories of miscellaneous
and officious learning! Of course Catholics also may read without
thinking; and in their case, equally as with Protestants, it holds good,
that such knowledge is unworthy of the name, knowledge which they have not
thought through, and thought out. Such readers are only possessed by their
knowledge, not possessed of it; nay, in matter of fact they are often even
carried away by it, without any volition of their own. Recollect, the
Memory can tyrannize, as well as the Imagination. Derangement, I believe,
has been considered as a loss of control over the sequence of ideas. The
mind, once set in motion, is henceforth deprived of the power of
initiation, and becomes the victim of a train of associations, one thought
suggesting another, in the way of cause and effect, as if by a mechanical
process, or some physical necessity. No one, who has had experience of men
of studious habits, but must recognize the existence of a parallel
phenomenon in the case of those who have over-stimulated the Memory. In
such persons Reason acts almost as feebly and as impotently as in the
madman; once fairly started on any subject whatever, they have no power of
self-control; they passively endure the succession of impulses which are
evolved out of the original exciting cause; they are passed on from one
idea to another and go steadily forward, plodding along one line of