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.Gradually with the years, his horizon widens, and, in proportion as histhoughts and feelings become less personal and less concerned with his own physicalstates, he achieves growing wisdom.This is of course a matter of degree.No one canview the world with complete impartiality; and if anyone could, he would hardly be ableto remain alive.But it is possible to make a continual approach towards impartiality, onthe one hand, by knowing things somewhat remote in time or space, and on the otherhand, by giving to such things their due weight in our feelings.It is this approach towardsimpartiality that constitutes growth in wisdom.Can wisdom in this sense be taught? And, if it can, should the teaching of it be one of theaims of education? I should answer both these questions in the affirmative.We are toldon Sundays that we should love our neighbors as ourselves.On the other six days of theweek, we are exhorted to hate.But you will remember that the precept was exemplifiedby saying that the Samaritan was our neighbour.We no longer have any wish to hateSamaritans and so we are apt to miss the point of the parable.If you wnat to get its point,you should substitute Communist or anti-Communist, as the case may be, for Samaritan.It might be objected that it is right to hate those who do harm.I do not think so.If youhate them, it is only too likely that you will become equally harmful; and it is veryunlikely that you will induce them to abandon their evil ways.Hatred of evil is itself akind of bondage to evil.The way out is through understanding, not through hate.I am notadvocating non-resistance.But I am saying that resistance, if it is to be effective inpreventing the spread of evil, should be combined with the greatest degree ofunderstanding and the smallest degree of force that is compatible with the survival of thegood things that we wish to preserve.Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM4It is commonly urged that a point of view such as I have been advocating is incompatiblewith vigour in action.I do not think history bears out this view.Queen Elizabeth I inEngland and Henry IV in France lived in a world where almost everybody was fanatical,either on the Protestant or on the Catholic side.Both remained free from the errors oftheir time and both, by remaining free, were beneficent and certainly not ineffective.Abraham Lincoln conducted a great war without ever departing from what I have calledwisdom.I have said that in some degree wisdom can be taught.I think that this teaching shouldhave a larger intellectual element than has been customary in what has been thought of asmoral instruction.I think that the disastrous results of hatred and narrow-mindedness tothose who feel them can be pointed out incidentally in the course of giving knowledge.Ido not think that knowledge and morals ought to be too much separated.It is true that thekind of specialized knowledge which is required for various kinds of skill has very littleto do with wisdom.But it should be supplemented in education by wider surveyscalculated to put it in its place in the total of human activities.Even the best techniciansshould also be good citizens; and when I say 'citizens', I mean citizens of the world andnot of this or that sect or nation.With every increase of knowledge and skill, wisdombecomes more necessary, for every such increase augments our capacity of realizing ourpurposes, and therefore augments our capacity for evil, if our purposes are unwise.Theworld needs wisdom as it has never needed it before; and if knowledge continues toincrease, the world will need wisdom in the future even more than it does now.Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com
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