Page:Authority and Knowledge.djvu/17

 rises to things so high and magnificent and divine and yet comes down to matters of practice, and divides itself into as many kinds of knowledge and skill, as there are professions or crafts and works.

Authority and Knowledge. These are the two; and the questions which I wish to ask you about them are,

(1) Is either of them certain to be a good to everyone?

(2) If not, what is it which makes them good?

(1) Authority. How does it act? We see in our Schools that it acts by power. We have power in the Schools over the children, power to order, power to reward them, power to punish and expel them, if they disobey. Authority everywhere rests on power, and works by power. The government has power at its command, soldiers, police, the action of the law: even in the home the father is the strongest: and can enforce, if need be, his will.

(2.) Knowledge. Knowledge, to put the thing simply, is that by which a man finds his way. We are born into the world as it were like a person lost in an unknown land, of which ha does not know the country or the language And all the knowledge that is given us is to help us to find our way: we learn what sort