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Some centuries ago Nicholas Ling said, "Ignorance is a voluntary misfortune." And John Locke later added, "A man may live long, and die at last in ignorance of many truths which his mind was capable of knowing."
There are some things, surely, of which we are needlessly ignorant -- and voluntary ignorance is a major misfortune. And as to acquiring constructive knowledge, we should have a continuing discontent and never become complacent or smugly satisfied with what we know of people, places, or principles. We should "study and learn, and become acquainted with all good books, and with languages, tongues, and people." We should seek wisdom -- understanding -- and have minds open to truth whatever it is and wherever it is, since education is not only an opportunity but also an obligation.
It is sometimes said that what we don't know won't hurt us. This is as if to say that if a person has a disease and doesn't know it, it does't hurt him -- or if we pay for good quality and receive shoddy or falsely labeled goods, it doesn't hurt user if we have lost something and don't know it, this is no real loss. Anything false or fraudulent, damaging or deceitful, has its ill effects whether we know it or not.
We need to know all we reasonably can -- about physical facts, about people and their problems, about eternal principles. We should try always to turn light into dark places; to repent, to improve, to know more than we have known, to do better than we have done. We must seek to cast out fear, superstition, mistrust, misunderstanding; to penetrate the shadows with freedom to search, and with courage to face the facts -- for "the glory of God is intelligence" and avoidable ignorance is unbecoming to any one of us.
"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."
Page Modified November 4, 1999