When learned
productions accumulate, the acquisition of knowledge occupies the time that
might be bestowed on invention. The object of mere learning is attained
with moderate or inferior talents, and the growing list of pretenders
diminishes the lustre of the few who are eminent. When we only mean to
learn what others have taught, it is probable that even our knowledge will
be less than that of our masters. Great names continue to be repeated with
admiration, after we have ceased to examine the foundations of our praise;
and new pretenders are rejected, not because they fall short of their
predecessors, but because they do not excel them; or because in reality we
have, without examination, taken for granted the merit of the first, and
cannot judge of either.
After libraries are furnished, and every path of ingenuity is occupied, we
are, in proportion to our admiration of what is already done, prepossessed
against farther attempts. We become students and admirers, instead of
rivals; and substitute the knowledge of books, instead of the inquisitive
or animated spirit in which they were written.
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