Page:Logic Taught by Love.djvu/66

62 "Do you know whom you are going to have for your Teacher ? God. The time has come when you will put into practice the command of Christ—'Call no man your master on earth ; for One is your Master, even God.' . . . You have heard and said that God is Light and enlightens every man. Do you believe this? If so, then accept all the consequences of that belief. If you believe that you have within you a Master Who wills to teach you, say to this Master, as you would say it to a man standing in front of you: 'Master, speak to me; I am listening.'

"But then, after you have said, 'I am listening,' you must listen. This is simple, but of primary importance.

"In order to listen, we must have silence. Now who, I ask, among men—especially among those who consider themselves thinkers—ever secures for himself silence?

"All day long the student listens to other men's talk; or else, he talks himself; when he is supposed to be alone, he is making books talk to him as fast as his eye can move along the lines of print. . . . His solitude is peopled, besieged, cumbered ... by useless talkers and by books which are a mere hindrance to thought. . . . Believe me, one who studies thus will learn little or nothing; just because there is only one Teacher, and this Teacher is within us ; because we must listen before we can hear Him; and to listen we must have silence."

Nevertheless, Gratry insists that no man is really educated unless he knows, and knows well, the essential principles of all the important Sciences. His list of requirements seem at first sight a formidable one. The cultivated man must know enough of the Higher Mathematics to understand the principles of