6 THE DESIRE OF KNOWLEDGE. 



to consider what the motives are by which human 

 actions are in general directed, will find that no 

 imputation can be more groundless. The desire of 

 knowledge is the first and the strongest of all our 

 desires: and indeed all other desires are grounded 

 upon a previous desire for knowledge. To suppose 

 that we desire that which we do not know, is just as 

 absurd as to suppose that we see what we do not see ; 

 and if there is nothing external answering to the 

 desire, then the whole is more purely a mental matter, 

 and consequently more exclusively a result of former 

 knowledge than if it had a tangible object. Even 

 when the infant evinces the first desire for nature's 

 own cup, and before its little features have smiled on 

 the parent by whom that cup is bestowed, or its little 

 fingers have plied that elementary geometry and 

 arithmetic, by means of which it learns to measure 

 space and count time, even then, the knowledge of 

 hunger must come before the desire of food; for, if 

 we venture to apply the ignorance-cloaking word 

 instinct even here, we abandon mind at the very out- 

 set, and immortality is a dream. 



If we are to charge the aversion for technical forms 

 against those who turn away from them, we must 

 begin at this early stage ; because if we take a later 

 one, we know not what may have taken place in the 

 intermediate time. From all the investigation which 

 I was able to make of the cases of indifference to 

 knowledge to which allusion has been made, I always 

 found cause enough in the previous treatment ; and 

 if this did not attach to neglect or improper conduct 

 at home, it was invariably traceable to the system or 

 the book. This is a subject which bears more intimately 

 upon the intelligence, the virtue, and the happiness 

 of mankind (which, by the way, are rather three 



