Page 182 - erewhon

I own that all this seemed rather hard, and not of a piece
with the many admirable institutions existing among them.
I once ventured to say a part of what I thought about it to
one of the Professors of Unreason. I did it very tenderly, but
his justification of the system was quite out of my compre-
hension. I remember asking him whether he did not think it
would do harm to a lad’s principles, by weakening his sense
of the sanctity of his word and of truth generally, that he
should be led into entering upon a solemn declaration as
to the truth of things about which all that he can certainly
know is that he knows nothing—whether, in fact, the teach-
ers who so led him, or who taught anything as a certainty
of which they were themselves uncertain, were not earning
their living by impairing the truth-sense of their pupils (a
delicate organisation mostly), and by vitiating one of their
most sacred instincts.
The Professor, who was a delightful person, seemed
greatly surprised at the view which I took, but it had no
influence with him whatsoever. No one, he answered, ex-
pected that the boy either would or could know all that he
said he knew; but the world was full of compromises; and
there was hardly any affirmation which would bear be-
ing interpreted literally. Human language was too gross
a vehicle of thought—thought being incapable of absolute
translation. He added, that as there can be no translation
from one language into another which shall not scant the
meaning somewhat, or enlarge upon it, so there is no lan-
guage which can render thought without a jarring and a
harshness somewhere—and so forth; all of which seemed

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