That which undermined the authority of old men was the book. Books contain all science, equity, jurisprudence and history better, it must be confessed, than the memories of old men.
One fine day the young men said: "The old men were our books; now that we have books we have no further need for old men."
This was a mistake; the knowledge which is accumulated in books can never be anything but the handmaiden of living science, the science which is being constantly remodelled and corrected by living thought. A book is a wise man paralysed; the wise man is a book which still thinks and writes.
These ideas did not hold; the book superseded the old man, and the old man no longer was a library to the nation."
That which undermined the authority of old men was the book. Books contain all science, equity, jurisprudence and history better, it must be confessed, than the memories of old men.
One fine day the young men said: "The old men were our books; now that we have books we have no further need for old men."
This was a mistake; the knowledge which is accumulated in books can never be anything but the handmaiden of living science, the science which is being constantly remodelled and corrected by living thought. A book is a wise man paralysed; the wise man is a book which still thinks and writes.
These ideas did not hold; the book superseded the old man, and the old man no longer was a library to the nation."