Page:Authority and Knowledge.djvu/18

 of a place the world is, and how we are to live, and what is useful, and what brings money and a living. All kinds of knowledge, reading and summing, and learning how to handle a knife and fork, or sit on a horse, up to the knowledge which fits a man for a great post and enables him to earn a large salary, all are parts of this learning our way. Even the high sciences are the same: Astronomy teaches us whereabouts we are in the great Universe, what sort of a place it is to which our little world belongs: and Religious knowledge helps us to find our way in another and yet higher sense.

And now I ask my first question; is it certainly good for every one to be under authority and to possess knowledge? You will be inclined to say 'Yes, to be quite undisciplined, or quite ignorant must be wrong; Rule and Knowledge are sure to be good for everyone.' And yet I shall venture to answer that they are not certainly good.

Surely there are cases when subjection to power and authority brings mischief and not good; for we have about us a feeling of independence and freedom, a sense that each man or each child is given by God his own life, and belongs to himself, and not to any one else. And if Power comes down upon us, and with no questions asked or answers given, sets us