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Unit 18: Hazlitt-On The Importance of the Learned...

only one parts. In the country the people know the virtues or vices of a man and trace them to Notes
several generations. The man of society has common sense, and the learned lack it. The unlearned
one is always right when he judges anything by himself; and he goes wrong when he trusts to the
opinions of the learned.
The labourers is learning accept blindly traditional maxims and preconceived notions. Then they
find it hard to come at the plain truth on any question because of the accumulation of theories.
They see things as they find them in the books. They Preserve contradictions and render nonsense
scared. They cherish dogmas and refuse to find out the true and the useful. Thus the scholars have
wasted their intelligence and understanding in defending creeds and theories of law. The same
wastage is to be found in the discussions concerning politics, alchemy, astrology, and words. The
labours of these scholars like Land, Bull, Waterland, St. Augustine, Puffendorf and Vattel in the
theology and law have yielded no useful results. The same is true of the theorists like Scaliger,
Cardan, and Scioppius. Their works fill the vaults. Though they were important personalities in
their time, we laugh at them today.
The most sensible people are the men of business. They argue from what they see and know.
Women have more good sense than men. They have fewer false claims and they are not committed
to theories like fanatics. They judge things more truly and naturally on the basis of their immediate
impressions. They do not think or speak in accordance with a set of rules, and therefore, they have
more eloquence, wit, and common sense. This enables them to govern their husbands. Their style
is better when they write to their friends.
The uneducated are more inventive and they are free from prejudice. Thus the uneducated mind
of Shakespeare reveals a freshness of imagination, and he has a variety of ideas. Milton was
scholastic in his thoughts and feelings. Since Shakespeare was not trained as a scholar, he has an
unaffected and healthy tone of dramatic morality. We should read Shakespeare, if we want to
know the force of human genius. We can know the insignificance of human learning by going
through the writings of Shakespeare’s commentators.
Hazlitt himself did not have a formal scholastic education Hence his violent treatment of the
training of a scholar.
Self Assessment
1. Choose the correct options:
(i) Hazliti began writing the treatise on personal identity titled
(a) An essay on the Principles of Human Action
(b) Morning Chronicle
(c) Edinburgh Review
(d) London Magazine
(ii) Hazlitt was introduced to Samuel Taylor Coleridge in
(a) 1798 (b) 1795 (c) 1790 (d) 1785
(iii) On the Ignorance of the Learned is the ....... essay in Table Talk.
(a) Second (b) Fourth
(c) Fifth (d) Eighth
(iv) The boys who shine at schools ........ to make a work in real life
(a) Succeed (b) Fail
(c) Both a and b (d) None of these

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