We feel our
minds to be growing and expanding _then_, when we not only learn, but
refer what we learn to what we know already. It is not the mere addition
to our knowledge that is the illumination; but the locomotion, the
movement onwards, of that mental centre, to which both what we know, and
what we are learning, the accumulating mass of our acquirements,
gravitates. And therefore a truly great intellect, and recognised to be
such by the common opinion of mankind, such as the intellect of
Aristotle, or of St. Thomas, or of Newton, or of Goethe (I purposely
take instances within and without the Catholic pale, when I would speak
of the intellect as such), is one which takes a connected view of old
and new, past and present, far and near, and which has an insight into
the influence of all these one on another; without which there is no
whole and no centre. It possesses the knowledge, not only of things, but
also of their mutual and true relations; knowledge, not merely
considered as acquirement but as philosophy.
Accordingly, when this analytical, distributive, harmonising process is
away, the mind experiences no enlargement, and is not reckoned as
enlightened or comprehensive, whatever it may add to its knowledge.
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