J. D. Palmer

"On the occasion in question [the commission of a new public library], Sir Robert [Peel] gave expression to a theory of morals and religion, which of course, in a popular speech, was not put out in a very dogmatic form, but which, when analyzed and fitted together, reads somewhat as follows:— 

• Human nature, he seems to say, if left to itself, becomes sensual and  degraded. Uneducated men live in the indulgence of their passions; or, if they  are merely taught to read, they dissipate and debase their minds by trifling or  vicious publications.

• Education is the cultivation of the intellect and heart, and  Useful  Knowledge is the great instrument of education. It is the parent of  virtue, the nurse of religion; it exalts man to his highest perfection, and is the  sufficient scope of his most earnest exertions. Physical and moral science rouses, transports, exalts, enlarges,  tranquillises, and satisfies the mind. Its attractiveness obtains a hold over us;  the excitement attending it supersedes grosser excitements; it makes us know  our duty, and thereby enables us to do it; by taking the mind off itself, it  destroys anxiety; and by providing objects of admiration, it soothes and   subdues us...

   "This, it is almost needless to say, is the very theory, expressed temperately, on which Mr. Brougham [Lord Henry Brougham, founder of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge] once expatiated in the Glasgow and London Universities…For instance, Mr. Brougham…wrote about the ‘pure delight’ of physical knowledge, of its ‘pure gratification,’ of its ‘tendency to purify and elevate man's nature,’ of its ‘elevating and refining it,’ of its ‘giving a dignity and importance to the enjoyment of life.’…

   "The first question which obviously suggests itself is how these wonderful moral effects are to be wrought under the instrumentality of the physical sciences. Can the process be analyzed and drawn out, or does it act like a dose or a charm which comes into general use empirically?…

   "Mr. Bentham [Jeremy Bentham, philosopher] would answer, that the knowledge which carries virtue along with it, is the knowledge how to take care of number one—a clear appreciation of what is pleasurable, what painful, and what promotes the one and prevents the other. An uneducated man is ever mistaking his own interest, and standing in the way of his own true enjoyments. Useful Knowledge is that which tends to make us more useful to ourselves;—a most definite and intelligible account of the matter, and needing no explanation. But it would be a great injustice, both to Lord Brougham and to Sir Robert, to suppose, when they talk of Knowledge being Virtue, that they are Benthamizing. Bentham had not a spark of poetry in him; on the contrary, there is much of high aspiration, generous sentiment, and impassioned feeling in the tone of Lord Brougham and Sir Robert. They speak of knowledge as something "pulchrum," fair and glorious, exalted above the range of ordinary humanity, and so little connected with the personal interest of its votaries, that, though Sir Robert does obiter talk of improved modes of draining, and the chemical properties of manure, yet he must not be supposed to come short of the lofty enthusiasm of Lord Brougham, who expressly panegyrizes certain ancient philosophers who gave up riches, retired into solitude, or embraced a life of travel, smit with a sacred curiosity about physical or mathematical truth…

   "Surely, there is something unearthly and superhuman in spite of Bentham; but it is not glory, or knowledge, or any abstract idea of virtue, but great and good tidings which need not here be particularly mentioned, and the pity is, that these Christian statesmen cannot be content with what is divine without as a supplement hankering after what was heathen.