Quiet Talks by Samuel Dickey: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Personal Problems: 25. A High Aim.

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Quiet Talks by Samuel Dickey: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Personal Problems: 25. A High Aim.



TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Personal Problems (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 25. A High Aim.

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A High Aim.

What is the highest ambition that such an earnest man may attain to? I do not say a high ambition, but the highest. There are many high targets at which men aim. But he is in a bad way who is aiming lower than the highest. And the highest includes all on the way up. These less-high things are added to the man seeking the highest. In all fairness the highest must be one that is open to all men, and possible to all. Leaving untouched many low, ignoble answers, there are among men four distinct standards of highest ambition.

There are many who believe that to know is the highest achievement. Their number includes great, worthy names, and many more equally worthy though unnamed by the crowd. And to know is a great aim. Without doubt knowledge is power. It has literally revolutionized all thought, and all methods of living. It has led to the saving of numberless lives, and made the saved lives happier too.

It is good to know, and to know what you know, and, modestly, to know that you know what you know, and that you do not know what you do not know. The old philosopher of Greece declared this to be the true knowledge. But the man who sets this before him as the chief ambition has a keen disappointment ahead. For the more you know the less you know; that is, the more you know of that you do not know. The wider the circle of knowledge, the broader is the sweep of ignorance. The higher the hill of knowledge you climb, the farther views you get of what you do not know. Knowing is largely a means of discovering the greatness of one's ignorance. If a man set this before himself as the highest aim he is doomed to bitterest disappointment.

There are those who would take books and manuscripts and like means of research, and, in imitation of the old Hebrews, make a calf of them— shall I say a papier-mâché calf?—and say: " These be thy gods that shall lead out of every Egypt of slavery, up into the promised land." This is a comparatively small, but very select, company of choice spirits.

This ambition is open to the very small number. Even in our own land, where the public school is so blessedly common, and colleges large and small of all grades are so plentiful, these are practically, with the exception of the lower school grades, for the few. Only a small proportion of all public-school pupils get as far as the high school grade, a yet smaller number go to college, and many of these do not complete the course.

The world never knew so much, so many different things as to-day, and never was more ignorant, profoundly ignorant; that is, ignorant in the ignorance of the great masses of men, and ignorant too of the simplest knowledge of true living. It is good to know, and to know the most and best, and to know thoroughly what is known, but plainly knowledge is simply a road through to something higher up. It is not a goal in itself.