Let us weigh the dignity of knowledge in the balance with other things.  In its archetype it is the Divine wisdom, or sapience, manifested in the creation.  In the celestial hierarchy the supposed Dionysius of Athens places the angels of knowledge and illumination before those of office and domination.  Then, the first material form that was created was light, which corresponds in corporal things to knowledge in incorporai.  The day wherein God contemplated His own works was blessed above the days wherein He accomplished them.  Man’s first employment in Paradise consisted of the two chief parts of knowledge, the view of creatures, and the imposition of names.  In the age before the Flood, Scripture honours the names of the inventors of music and of works in metal.  Moses was accomplished in all the learning of the Egyptians.  The book of Job is pregnant with natural philosophy.  In Solomon, the gift of wisdom and learning is preferred before all other earthly and temporal felicity.

Our Saviour first showed His power to subdue ignorance by His conference with the doctors, before He showed His power to subdue Nature by miracles; and the coming of the Holy Spirit was chiefly figured in the gift of tongues, which are the vehicles of knowledge.  St. Paul, most learned of the apostles, had his pen most used in the New Testament.  Many of the ancient fathers of the Church were excellently read in all the learning of the heathen; and that heathen learning was preserved, amid Scythian and Saracen invasions, in the sacred bosom of the Church.  And in our own day, when God has called the Roman Church to account for degenerate manners and obnoxious doctrines.  He has also ordained a renovation of all other knowledges; and, on the other side, the Jesuits, by quickening the state of learning, have done notable service to the Roman See.  Wherefore two principal services are performed to religion by human learning:  first, the contemplation of God’s works is an effectual inducement to the exaltation of His glory; and, secondly, true learning is a singular preservative against unbelief and error.

To pass now to human proofs of the dignity of learning, we find that among the heathen the inventors of new arts, such as Ceres, Bacchus, and Apollo, were consecrated among the gods themselves by apotheosis.  The fable of Orpheus, wherein quarrelsome beasts stood sociably listening to the harp, aptly described the nature of men among whom peace is maintained so long as they give ear to precepts, laws, and religion.  It has been said that people would then be happy, when kings were philosophers, or philosophers kings; and history shows that the best times have ever been under learned princes.