Enquirer Author:William Godwin Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: dicious education is, Learn to think, to discriminate, to remember, and to enquire. ESSAY II. OF THE UTILITY OF TALENTS. Doubts have sometimes been sugg... more »ested as to the desirableness of talents. " Give to a child," it has frequently been said, " good sense and a virtuous propensity; I desire no more. Talents are often rather an injury that a benefit to their possessor. They are a sort of ignisfatuus leading us astray; a fever of the mind incompatible with the sober dictates of prudence. They tempt a man to the perpetration of bold, bad deeds; and qualify him rather to excite the admiration, than promote the interests, of society." This may be affirmed to be a popular doctrine; yet where almost is the affectionate parent who would seriously say, " Take care that my child do not turn out a lad of too much capacity ?" The capacity which it is in the power of education to bestow, must consist principally in information. Is it to be feared that a man should know too much for his happiness ? Knowledge for the most part consists in added means of pleasure or enjoyment, and added discernment to select those means. Conjectures respecting the studies to be cultivated in youth, not so much for their own sake, as for that of the habits they produce, are stated in Essay VI. It must probably be partial, not extensive, information, that is calculated to lead us astray. The twilight of knowledge bewilders, and infuses a false confidence; its clear and perfect day must exhibit things in their true colours and dimensions. The proper cure of mistake, must be to afford me more information; not to take away that which I have. Talents in general, notwithstanding the exception mentioned in the outset, hold a higher estimation among mankind than virtues. There are few men who had ...« less