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Knowledge and Wisdom
Bertrand
Russell
Most people would agree that,
although our age far surpasses all previous ages
in knowledge,
there has been no
correlative increase in wisdom. But agreement
ceases as soon as we attempt to
define
`wisdom' and consider means of promoting it. I
want to ask first what wisdom is, and then
what can be done to teach it.
There
are,
I
think,
several
factors
that
contribute
to
wisdom.
Of
these
I
should
put
first
a
sense of
proportion: the capacity to take account of all
the important factors in a problem and to
attach to each its due weight. This has
become more difficult than it used to be owing to
the extent
and complexity of the
specialized knowledge required of various kinds of
technicians. Suppose,
for example, that
you are engaged in research in scientific
medicine. The work is difficult and is
likely
to
absorb
the
whole of
your
intellectual
energy.
You have
not
time
to
consider
the
effect
which your
discoveries or inventions may have outside the
field of medicine. You succeed (let us
say), as modern medicine has succeeded,
in enormously lowering the infant death-rate, not
only in
Europe and America, but also in
Asia and Africa. This has the entirely unintended
result of making
the
food
supply
inadequate
and
lowering
the
standard
of
life
in
the
most
populous
parts
of
the
world.
To
take
an
even
more
spectacular
example,
which
is
in
everybody's
mind
at
the
present
time:
You
study
the
composition
of
the
atom
from
a
disinterested
desire
for
knowledge,
and
incidentally place in the hands of
powerful lunatics the means of destroying the
human race. In
such ways the pursuit of
knowledge may become harmful unless it is combined
with wisdom; and
wisdom in the sense of
comprehensive vision is not necessarily present in
specialists in the pursuit
of
knowledge.
Comprehensiveness alone,
however, is not enough to constitute wisdom. There
must be, also,
a
certain
awareness
of
the
ends
of
human
life.
This
may
be
illustrated
by
the
study
of
history.
Many eminent
historians have done more harm than good because
they viewed facts through the
distorting medium of their own
passions. Hegel had a philosophy of history which
did not suffer
from any lack of
comprehensiveness, since it started from the
earliest times and continued into an
indefinite future. But the chief lesson
of history which he sought to inculcate was that
from the
year
400AD
down
to
his
own
time
Germany
had
been
the
most
important
nation
and
the
standard-bearer
of
progress
in
the
world.
Perhaps
one
could
stretch
the
comprehensiveness
that
constitutes wisdom to
include not only intellect but also feeling. It is
by no means uncommon to
find
men
whose
knowledge
is
wide
but
whose
feelings
are
narrow.
Such
men
lack
what
I
call
wisdom.
It
is not only in public ways, but in private life
equally, that wisdom is needed. It is needed in
the choice of ends to be pursued and in
emancipation from personal prejudice. Even an end
which
it
would
be
noble
to
pursue
if
it
were
attainable
may
be
pursued
unwisely
if
it
is
inherently
impossible
of
achievement.
Many
men
in
past
ages
devoted
their
lives
to
a
search
for
the
philosopher's
stone
and
the
elixir
of
life.
No
doubt,
if
they
could
have
found
them,
they
would
have conferred great
benefits upon mankind, but as it was their lives
were wasted. To descend to
less
heroic
matters,
consider
the
case
of
two
men,
Mr.
A
and
Mr.
B,
who
hate
each
other
and,
through mutual hatred,
bring each other to destruction. Suppose you go to
Mr. A and say, 'Why do
you hate Mr. B?'
He will no doubt give you an appalling list of Mr.
B's vices, partly true, partly
false.
And now suppose you go to Mr. B. He will give you
an exactly similar list of Mr. A's vices