Wisdom has never lost its association with the proper
direction of life. Only in education, never in the life of
farmer, sailor, merchant, physician, or laboratory experimenter,
does knowledge mean primarily a store of information aloof from
doing. Having to do with things in an intelligent way issues in
acquaintance or familiarity. The things we are best acquainted
with are the things we put to frequent use -- such things as
chairs, tables, pen, paper, clothes, food, knives and forks on
the commonplace level, differentiating into more special objects
according to a person's occupations in life. Knowledge of things
in that intimate and emotional sense suggested by the word
acquaintance is a precipitate from our employing them with a
purpose. We have acted with or upon the thing so frequently that
we can anticipate how it will act and react -- such is the
meaning of familiar acquaintance. We are ready for a familiar
thing; it does not catch us napping, or play unexpected tricks
with us. This attitude carries with it a sense of congeniality
or friendliness, of ease and illumination; while the things with
which we are not accustomed to deal are strange, foreign, cold,
remote, "abstract."
II. But it is likely that elaborate statements regarding this
primary stage of knowledge will darken understanding. It
includes practically all of our knowledge which is not the result
of deliberate technical study.
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