KNOWLEDQE AND OPINION. 91 



year ago. Whatever iVfr. A. ventures to believe, 

 Mr. B. delights in disproving. Wiiile tiiey pre- 

 tend to teach us all what we ought to think, they 

 are always at loggerheads among themselves as to 

 their own ideas and opinions. Does one of them 

 set forth his profound discovery that man is de- 

 scended from a primeval monkey, straightway 

 another of them proves to demonstration, on 

 scientific principles, that men and monkeys are 

 separated from each other by an impassable gulf, 

 like that which divided Dives, in his place of tor- 

 ment, from hap})y Lazarus, in Abraham's bosom. 

 Does one of them give us, like Mr. Pickwick, a 

 Theory of Tittlebats, with S[)eculations on the 

 Origin of the Hampstead Ponds, fortliwith another 

 arises to show that the theory is the baseless 

 fabric of a dream, and that the ponds were really 

 dug out a hundred years ago by an eminent con- 

 tractor for the su])ply of milk (of the usual 

 quality) to the population of London. No, no ; 

 these men who presume to teach us all are really 

 every bit as ignorant as we ourselves are. What- 

 ever one of them says the others contradict ; and, 

 as it is impossible for us outsiders to decide when 

 doctors disagree, or to find out which of them is 

 in the right, the best thing for us to do is to dis- 

 regard them all impartially in the lump together." 

 Now, on the first blush of it, this familiar com- 

 plaint seems really to have a great deal of reason 



