338 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



affords another argument in behalf of the fools. To be sure, the nat- 

 ural history of the angel species has been but imperfectly studied ; yet 

 here again our very ignorance helps us. Theoretically, we should all 

 like to be angels ; but, practically, we prefer to stay where we are. 

 Besides, familiarity with angels might be exceedingly uncomfortable ; 

 especially if they should take it into the ghosts of their late heads to 

 visit us in spook-fashion, with the accompaniments of blue-fire and 

 winding-sheets. But to the point again. Education makes men cau- 

 tious and calculating; careful of precedents; afraid of mistakes. Many 

 a time the brilliant audacity of a daring ignoramus has achieved suc- 

 cesses which would have been unattainable to orderly skill and train- 

 ing. Lord Timothy Dexter, that most inspired of idiots, sent a cargo 

 of warming-pans to the West Indies. The natives took the bottoms for 

 sugar-scoops and the perforated lids for strainers, and Dexter gained a 

 fortune out of his ridiculous venture. Zachary Taylor, whipped by 

 a Mexican army, was too bad a soldier to be conscious of his defeat, 

 and kept on fighting. His adversaries, astonished at his perseverance, 

 thought he must have hidden reserves, and incontinently ran away. 

 Thus Taylor won the battle, as contemporaries say, " by sheer jjluck 

 and awkwardness." "Against stupidity the gods themselves fight 

 powerless." Stupidity, therefore, by all the rules of logic, must be 

 superior to sense, and truly deserves, over all competitors, the crown 

 of laurel. 



The advantages of ignorance may be further illustrated by a refer- 

 ence to the disadvantages of omniscience. Suppose one of us. could 

 know everything, past, present, and future how uncomfortable he 

 would be ! Looking backward into remote antiquity, he would behold 

 his ancestral ape engaged in the undignified performance of catching 

 fleas. Turning with disgust from the past, he would find in the pres- 

 ent many things as humiliating. Misunderstandings, bickerings, ha- 

 treds, and slanders, unknown to ordinary men, would stand revealed 

 before him. And from the coming time he would anticipate trouble 

 and misfortune ; he would see approaching evils far off in the dim dis- 

 tance ; and not even the knowledge of attendant pleasures could quite 

 unsadden him. To know everything would be to learn nothing to 

 have no hopes and no desires, since both woiild become equally futile. 

 After the first excitement, one would harden into a mere automaton 

 an omniscient machine with consciousness worthless, and volition a 

 farce. Had Shakespeare been able to foresee his commentators, his 

 greatest works would never have been written. 



There are two sides to every question. Like the god Janus, all 

 things are double-faced. Knowledge is not unalloyed good ; neither 

 is ignorance unadulterated evil. If ignorance were abolished, how 

 many teachers would starve for want of occupation ! Were all fools 

 to become sensible, what would the knaves do for a living ? The igno- 

 ramus, so long as he is ignorant of his ignorance, is comfortable and 



