WOLLASTON thus sums up his volume, "The Religion of Nature Delineated": "For a conclusion of the whole matter, let our conversation in this world so far as we are concerned and able, be such as acknowledges everything to be what it is." It is common report that things look not always as they are. Knowledge of anything is to have it in the mind as it is in fact. This is so important that Wollaston, as above, has identified it even with religion; and rightly, if we allow the universe to be good and divine; for then Nature's order will appear excellent and worshipful when we see it as it is.

Knowledge, among diverse conditions, has these two--that what we know of anything will depend--first, on our size relative to it, and, secondly, on our distance from it. For if we are too far away, we shall not see it at all; and if too near, we shall be entangled in its parts, not seeing it in unity; while if in mind or body we be not large enough to couple with the object, our best understanding will be but piecemeal knowledge, take a mite whose feet tickle our finger; to the insect we must appear as to our body very differently from the manner in which we must see the creature. In like manner, we perceive a great mountain, which is unknown to the squirrel sporting on it, and more hid still from the cicada nibbling a leaf in the forest on it. A ball hurled from a gun across our vision and close to us, at a thousand miles an hour we cannot see; but we see the moon well, though its speed is more than two thousand miles an hour. By reason of the distance, the moon seems even not to move at all; and if we were not large enough in mind to study the moon, how could we know its motion, or how think of it except as done in leaps, since we could not observe the transition? If we were not much larger creatures in Nature's eye--which judges always according to power of thought--than a basin of water, we might be amazed to find it warm to one hand and cold to the other (as Berkeley has set forth), and led, perhaps, to fantastic dreams of two natures in one--as many as ever amused a medieval Aristotelian. These instances--and many more, easily multiplied--will show how distance and relative size affect knowledge, which I shall take as allowed.

Now, as to knowledge of our own selves--herein relative size is done away, since the knower and the object are the same; but the requirement of due distance remains, for by effort of thought we can step apart and look at ourselves afar off. Justice and wisdom regarding ourselves wait on the distance we can go in mind from the small private circle of interests, emotions, prejudices, habits, which are implacable foes of understanding. Sidney Smith says:

"It is a great thing toward making right judgments, if a man know what allowance to make for himself, and what discount should habitually be given to his opinions, according as he is old or young, French or English, clergyman or layman, rich or poor, torpid or fiery, healthy or ill, sorrowful or gay."

But it is a rare gift to have the wish, rarer the power, to break from the tumults of experience and climb a far hill of judgment, from which coigne to see the valley of our passions. We have great power to see the truth when the truth is all we wish to see; but what is easier than to credit what we desire? and can a man deceive anyone so easily as himself? Whoever will be informed as to himself (the most thrifty of all knowledge for happiness and power) must take post of sight far enough to dissolve the crafty biases which keep us stunted, meager, fractious.

As to knowledge of our fellow-creatures--herein both conditions apply. We shall judge our fellows well according as we compare with them in size, that is, in stature of mind, and as we view them from a distance; but the far view means freedom from prejudice. As to all animals, higher and lower--our fellow-beings--a man's soul is gauged by his sympathy. Whoso has only a kick for a dog is a shabby creature of his kind, a reversion to our far precursers which had hoofs, of whom the most famous, according to a strange popular fable, as if to curse the vulgarity of a kick, was the devil. The donkey in the fable--whose huge bulk had no fiber tuned to the nightingale's song--to the mind's eye, in respect of music, was no more than a mite compared to that little feather-breast on the tree-top. Whoever fails of loving what is below him will fail of worshipping what is above him. Relish of the sight of any excellence--what purer satisfaction? What we think of as the supreme blessedness of the Most High--was it ever better writ than in the one sentence: "And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good"?

Regarding our fellow human beings, plainly the conditions apply. Whoso begins to traduce another or gossip glibly will halt awhiel if he ask whether he be certainly large enough to understand the object of his dislike. For notably it is the best men of the world who have been most maligned. If a man take no measure of himself in judging others, and no account of jealousy or of many other passions, or of those strange personal attractions and aversions which none can escape, he will stumble into dark pits under the pretense of seeking his neighbor therein. But after this precaution, then remains the second condition, the distant view-point, that is, the sifting out of pre-judgments. But here enters a caution--indifference of mind is not openness of mind; it is not sight from a far coigne of vantage; it is no sight. It is not philosophic poise, but malign prejudice and fatal incapacity. If a man enjoy only shadows and lights, will he be quick as to colors? Are untuneful ears unbiased as to music? Foolish to put a savage, on account of his indifference, to judge of Wagner, for untunableness as to all sounds is the worst prejudice as to Wagner's sounds. Nay, even if a man have a tunable ear and an eye for parterres and rainbows, indifference to any master in those forms is not a capacity for criticism. Give me the help of a warm lover of a person or an artist, so he be sensible and frank; for thus, though I may know less of faults, surely I shall sun myself in the stronger ray of virtues, which chiefly I wish to see.

As to knowledge of nature--herein both conditions apply; but relative size means nobility of soul. For if the glorious order of the earth and heavens express divinity, who can know it whose bodily fibers thrill only to appetite and whose mind digs in clay? The second condition--distance of view--means knowledge, that is, mental vision which takes sight of nature at long range and in unity. For as we cannot get outside of nature nor find any point more central or better to see from than where we are, so we can take a large sweep and gather a multitude into one thought only by the mind's eye. The many things marshal forth one meaning by the army of species, genera, orders, kingdoms, with rhythmical movement. But to the bare sense this is hidden, being the domain of mind. To ignorance, which cannot arrive at this far look, this sweep of knowledge-vision, nature must seem to go on piecemeal--from which comes a mean and sordid life and an abased form of religion.

"Of Knowledge" is reprinted from Essays. James Vila Blake. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Company, 1887.