It
appears, indeed, to a slight and superficial observer, that many things
impracticable in our present state, might be easily effected, if mankind
were better disposed to union and co-operation: but a little reflection
will discover, that if confederacies were easily formed, they would lose
their efficacy, since numbers would be opposed to numbers, and unanimity
to unanimity; and instead of the present petty competitions of
individuals or single families, multitudes would be supplanting
multitudes, and thousands plotting against thousands.
There is no class of the human species, of which the union seems to have
been more expected, than of the learned: the rest of the world have
almost always agreed to shut scholars up together in colleges and
cloisters; surely not without hope, that they would look for that
happiness in concord, which they were debarred from finding in variety;
and that such conjunctions of intellect would recompense the munificence
of founders and patrons, by performances above the reach of any single
mind.
But discord, who found means to roll her apple into the banqueting
chamber of the goddesses, has had the address to scatter her laurels in
the seminaries of learning.
Pages:
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58