Knowledge and Virtue

Knowledge is one thing, virtue is another; good sense isnot conscience,refinement is not humility, nor is largeness and justness of view faithPhilosophy,however enlightened,however profound,gives no command overthe passions,no influential motives,no vivifying principles Liberal Educationmakes not the Christian,not the Catholic,but the gentleman It is well to be agentleman, it is well to have a cultivated intellect,a delicate taste,a candid,equitable,dispassionate mind,a noble and courteous bearing in the conduct oflife—these are the connatural qualities of a large knowledge; they are theobjects of a University I am advocating, I shall illustrate and insist upon them;but still, I repeat, they are no guarantee for sanctity or even forconscientiousness, and they may attach to the man ofthe world, to theprofligate, to the heartless,pleasant,alas,and attractive as he shows whendecked out in them Taken by themselves, they do but seem to be what they arenot; they look like virtue at a distance,but they are detected by close observers,and in the long run;and hence it is that they are popularly accused of pretenseand hypocrisy,not, I repeat,from their own fault,but because their professorsand their admirers persist in taking them for what they are not,and are officiousin arrogating for them apraise to which they have no claim Quarry the graniterock with razors,ormoorthe vessel with a thread of silk, thenmayyouhopewith such keen and delicate instruments as human knowledge and humanreason to contend against those giants, the passion andthe pride of man