Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/488

478 extreme supposition. It is certain, however, that knowledge may be acquired under conditions which cultivate in very different degrees the powers of the acquirer; in other words, it is certain that one man may acquire knowledge, and in the attainment may find his whole intellectual being enlightened and invigorated, while another man may possess the same knowledge without receiving a corresponding benefit in the way of mental improvement. Thus, for example, the man who might acquire a knowledge of the Latin language, as he does that of his mother tongue, by associating in early life with those who spoke it, would not, by means of that acquisition, have his powers cultivated in an equal degree with those of the man who amid alien influences had learned that language by dint of systematic and persevering study; the former individual might have a more fluent command over the language in its practical usage, but the latter would have a far deeper and more rational insight into the universal structure and mechanism of speech. His faculties have been aroused and strengthened by the difficulties they had overcome; those of the other, who had imbibed the language instinctively without an effort from the society that surrounded him, lie dormant and inert, or at least the acquirement of the Latin tongue has not contributed to their development. Again, a large amount of the mere facts of physical science may be known by the superficial smatterer no less than by the profound mathematician. Yet, by what