First, O son, thou hast to fear God, for in fearing Him is
wisdom, and being wise thou canst not err.

But secondly thou hast to set thine eyes on what thou art,
endeavouring to _know thyself--which is the most difficult_
_knowledge that can be conceived._

But to know oneself is to know that which alone can know _What
Is._ So the hierarchy runs up.

XI

_What Does, What Knows, What Is...._
I have happily left myself no time to-day to speak of _What Is_:
happily, because I would not have you even approach it
towards the end of an hour when your attention must be languishing.
But I leave you with two promises, and with two sayings from which
as this lecture took its start its successors will proceed.

The first promise is, that _What Is,_ being the spiritual element
in man, is the highest object of his study.

The second promise is that, nine-tenths of what is worthy to be
called Literature being concerned with this spiritual element,
for that it should be studied, from firstly up to ninthly, before
anything else.

And my two quotations are for you to ponder: