442 On Learning and the Arts. 
spring of learning or knowledge, but claim otlier 
parents; that disguise, borrowed looks and lan= 
guage, and false exhibitions of the heart are not 
peculiar to any periodor state of man; that sincerity 
and honesty are not irreconcileable with politeness; 
and that whatever of evil can be charged to the 
account of politeness, is amply compensated by 
the real good which it produces. 
Politeness may certainly associate with learn- 
ing, and may be separate from it; but ther first 
origin is in the good-will and sympathy of man, 
in the desire of being agreeable in the form as 
well as in the substance of our fellow-intercourse. 
This is so obvious, that it is impossible to 
discover any special connection of cause and 
effect between a learned mind, and a polite mind. 
A learned man, without a kind and sympathetic 
heart, without a desire to please, may be as blunt 
a rustic as) Rousseau can contemplate in his 
golden age of simplicity. Learning is very far 
from being the character of the polite world, and 
politeness in a still less degree is the character of 
the learned world. Fhe weakest persons, to 
whom literature has not opened her very door, 
may lead in the dance of fashionable politeness. 
They are perfectly innocent, poor creatures! of 
the horrid crime of learning; but they are the 
arraigned before Rousseau’s tribunal, they are 
the convicts of unmeaning profession, of prosti- 
