Meditations for Layfolks - Study

As the intellect is the highest natural faculty of man, its exercise should be his chief concern. The distinction which we make between human and brute nature depends for its expression on the difference between intelligence and instinct; on the employment, on the one hand, of the reasoning faculty, and the following, on the other, of a spontaneous suggestion, which is ex hypothesi uncontrolled. In fact, we may even more shortly explain this difference by noting to what extent self-control enters in. Thus man has this particular power: the animal has not, for to control instinct is the work of deliberation, and deliberation itself supposes reason. A man is so much higher, there fore, in the scale of his humanity according as he is able to have complete dominion over himself. The perfect man alone has the full lordship of himself: this, no doubt, is finally achieved by his will; but the will itself must be subject to the reason. Consequently, since man is man in virtue of his reason, he has the declared duty of exercising and training that reason. It is his essential faculty, his proper distinguishing mark, the very condition of his free will; his responsibility for its stewardship is accordingly his most important burden. And because, left to itself, it tends to lose its force or grow out of its healthy form, man is morally obliged to study as best he can; he cannot afford to allow his highest talent to lie idle. It is incumbent on me, then, because I am a creature; it is part of the law of my nature to exercise by study the faculty of my reason, to sharpen it by use, to develop its keenness. Every human faculty unused gets atrophied; and reason, as we know, is as subject to this process of deterioration as any other. Because I am a man I must study; not read necessarily, but think.

Now, again, it is equally obvious that a certain value in my study will be due to the actual thing studied. It cannot be a matter of indifference to me what I eat, for not only should I consider the pleasure of my palate, but I should take into account my state of health, the season of the year, my immediate needs, and ten thousand other things. Since, too, my mind must feed, I must take care that the food is of such a nature as will benefit my reason; for alas! my mind as easily as my body may be hurt by poison. It is necessary for me, therefore, not only to exercise my intelligence, but to exercise it on fitting material. It may be stated generally that everything that tends to refinement of thought tends also to the perfection of the mind. Whatever science or art may make most appeal, along what ever line we choose to develop in some one art or science, so long as we are serious and thorough we can hardly go astray. It is true that "culture" may yet fall into brutality, and, turned to base uses, become a thing abhorred by God and man; but long before that, it has ceased to be "culture." It has somehow taken up principles opposed to the teaching of Christ, to the moral enactments of His Gospel. It has ceased, in other words, to be culture at all. For culture need imply no learning, no power of quotation, no incisive criticism; it means only the appreciation of the higher, finer, nobler side of life. That is why in its truest and deepest sense it is a safeguard against sin, for its whole tendency is to set the soul above merely gross or sensual or petty temptations. The chief point, then, is that the material on which we choose to sharpen our intelligence must be of such a kind as shall not spoil its keenness or its cleanness.

Yet though, on the whole, study opposes sin, it is patent from experience that scholars have often been narrow, vain, and even bestial. But that is more often due not to scholarship, but to pedantry; not to the education which they should have received, but to the information which alone was given them. They learnt to distinguish between material essences, but the fine temper of literature perpetually eluded them. The age of specialism, with all its wonderful results, makes this also even more likely. Each in his narrow groove for ever laid is tempted to ignore every other science but his own. The author of the monograph may be also the mono maniac; he is so steeped in his own particular material that its taste and aroma clings to him even when he mixes with other men. He has "the fixed idea"; whereas sanity is one of the chief ingredients of sanctity. I must, then, above all and through all, keep hold of faith; for that, since it deals with God, deals with the highest and most universal cause. It lifts man up out of his petty little circle and makes him survey with catholic vision the whole wide world. It lessens the estimate that he may have of his own stock of learning as though it contained the treasures of the world. The study of God would have preserved scholars against those petty ambitions and faults that have ruined them; it would have given a touch of immortality to the fleeting achievements of man. My reason, then, because of my dignity as a human soul, must be put to its highest use. I cannot let it run idly, but I need not read much: it will be enough if I think, especially, if I think of God.

- text taken from Meditations for Layfolk by Father Bede Jarrett, O.P.