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109 Scientia Non Est Virtus The good that I would I do not; the evil that I would not, that I do. —St. Paul After a week in Paris you saw in a sign a word you’d never learned. Stopping a passerby, you asked in French if he were French. The response in French could best be rendered as “perhaps. . . .” A month would pass before a laundress asked if many in America wrote poetry. You told her there were thousands. “But,” she insisted, “do you have one Baudelaire?” Such anecdotes not only give new meaning to nuance but demonstrate how ignorance differs from knowledge, and knowledge from holy wisdom. Though ignorance at best means nothing, knowledge may stay the fool of villainy, while villainy plays weevil to the will. And what’s the will except a wayward stallion ridden by our dreams to glory or perdition? For every Shakespeare, Lincoln, or Saint Matthew there’s a murderer, liar, reprobate or whore who mastered the Britannica 110 but stayed the same. Old or young, we learn too late that being good is more than strict adherence to commandments, laws, or codes, much more than being well informed, and light-years more than all the learning in the world. What is morality but shunning deeds we just can’t do even when the opportunities present themselves? It’s reflex more than choice or reasoning . . . If that sounds like a substitute for ignorance, then ignorance it is. If it seems paradoxical but vaguely possible, it’s knowledge. If it makes sense, it’s wisdom. ...

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