merit by correlation. Thus, if a certain subject has never been treated
except in abstruse and difficult terminology, a man of surpassing
literary powers, setting it forth in homely and intelligible language,
produces a work whose highest praise is expressed by Simplicity. Again,
after the last century period of artificial, complex, and highly-wrought
composition, the reaction of Cowper and Wordsworth in favour of
simplicity was an agreeable and refreshing change, and was in great part
acceptable because of the change. It does not appear that Wordsworth
comprehended this obvious fact; to him, a simplicity that cost nothing
to the composer, and brought no novelty to the reader, had still a
transcendent merit.

* * * * *

It has been a frequent practice of late years to celebrate the praises
of Knowledge. Many eloquent speakers have dilated on the happiness and
the superiority of the enlightened and the cultivated man. Now, the
correlative or obverse must be equally true: there must be a
corresponding degradation and disqualification attaching to ignorance
and the want of instruction. This correlative and equally cogent
statement is suppressed on certain occasions, and by persons that would
not demur to the praises of knowledge: as, when we are told of the
native good sense, the untaught sagacity, the admirable instincts of the
people,--that is, of the ignorant or the uneducated. Hence the great
value of the expository device of following up every principle with its,
counter-statement, the matter denied when the principle is affirmed. If
knowledge is a thing superlatively good, ignorance--the opposite of
knowledge--is a thing superlatively bad. There is no middle standing
ground.