Literature of Knowledge Essay Example for Free

Literature of Knowledge Essay First printed in The North Briton Review, August, 1848, as part of a review of The Works of Alexander Pope, ed. W. Roscoe, 1847. What is it that we mean by literature? Popularly, and amongst the thoughtless, it is held to include everything that is printed in a book. Little logic is required to disturb that definition. The most thoughtless person is easily made aware that in the idea of literature one essential element is, ? some relation to a general and common interest of man, so that what applies only to a local or professional or merely personal interest, even though presenting itself in the shape of a book, will not belong to literature. So far the definition is easily narrowed; and it is as easily expanded. For not only is much that takes a station in books not literature, but, inversely, much that really is literature never reaches a station in books. The weekly sermons of Christendom, that vast pulpit literature which acts so extensively upon the popular mind? to warn, to uphold, to renew, to comfort, to alarm? does not attain the sanctuary of libraries In the ten-thousandth part of its extent. The drama as for instance the finest of Shakespeares plays in England and all leading Athenian plays in the noontide of the Attic stage, operated as a literature on the public mind, and were (according to the strictest letter of that term) published through the audiences that witnessed their representation, some time before they were published as things to be read: and they were published in this scenical mode of publication with much more effect than they could have had as books during ages of costly copying or of costly printing. Books, therefore, do not suggest an idea co-extensive and interchangeable with the idea of literature, since much literature, scenic, forensic, or didactic (as from lectures and public orators), may never come into books, and much that does come into books may connect itself with no literary interest. But a far more important correction, applicable to the common vague idea of literature, is to be sought, not so much in a better definition of literature, as in a sharper distinction of the two functions which it fulfils. In that great social organ which, collectively, we call  literature, there may be distinguished two separate offices, that may blend and often do so, but capable, severally, of a severe insulation, and naturally fitted for reciprocal repulsion. There is, first, the literature of knowledge, and secondly, the literature of power. The function of the first is to teach; the function of the second is to move: the first is a rudder; the second an oar or a sail. The first speaks to the mere discursive understanding; the second speaks ultimately, it may happen, to the higher understanding, or reason, but always through affections of pleasure and sympathy. Remotely it may travel towards an object seated in what Lord Bacon calls dry light; but proximately it does and must operate? else it ceases to be a literature of power-on and through that humid light which clothes itself in the mists and glittering iris of human passions, desires, and genial emotions. Men have so little reflected on the higher functions of literature as to find it a paradox if one should describe it as a mean or subordinate purpose of books to give information. But this is a paradox only in the sense which makes it honorable to be paradoxical. Whenever we talk in ordinary language of seeking information or gaining knowledge, we understand the words as connected with something of absolute novelty. But it is the grandeur of all truth which can occupy a very high place in human interests that it is never absolutely novel to the meanest of minds: it exists eternally, by way of germ or latent principle, in the lowest as in the highest, needing to be developed but never to be planted. To be capable of transplantation is the immediate criterion of a truth that ranges on a lower scale. Besides which, there is a rarer thing than truth, namely, power, or deep sympathy with truth. What is the effect, for instance, upon society, of children? By the pity, by the tenderness, and by the peculiar modes of admiration, which connect themselves with the helplessness, with the innocence, and with the simplicity of children, not only are the primal affections strengthened and continually renewed, but the qualities which are dearest in the sight of heaven-the frailty, for instance, which appeals to forbearance, the innocence which symbolizes the heavenly, and the simplicity which is most alien from the worldly-are kept up in perpetual remembrance, and their ideals are continually refreshed. A purpose of the same nature is answered by the higher literature, viz. , the literature of power. What do you learn from Paradise Lost? Nothing at all. What do you learn from a cookery-book? Something new, something that you did not know before, in every paragraph. But would you therefore put the wretched cookery-book on a higher level of estimation than the divine poem? What you owe to Milton is not any knowledge, of which a million separate items are still but a million of advancing steps on the same earthly level; what you owe is power, that is, exercise and expansion to your own latent capacity of sympathy with the infinite, where every pulse and each separate influx is a step upwards, a step ascending as upon a Jacobs ladders from earth to mysterious altitudes above the earth. All the steps of knowledge, from first to last, carry you further on the same plane, but could never raise you one foot above your ancient level of earth; whereas the very first step in power is a flight, is an ascending movement into another element where earth is forgotten. Were it not that human sensibilities are ventilated and continually called out into exercise by the great phenomena of infancy, or of real life as it moves through chance and change, or of literature as it recombines these elements in the mimicries of poetry, romance, etc., it is certain that, like any animal power or muscular energy falling into disuse, all such sensibilities would gradually droop and dwindle. It is in relation to these great moral capacities of man that the literature of power, as contradistinguished from that of knowledge, lives and has its field of action. It is concerned with what is highest in man; for the Scriptures themselves never condescended to deal by suggestion or cooperation with the mere discursive understanding: when speaking of man in his intellectual capacity, the Scriptures speak not of the understanding, but of the understanding heart, ?  making the heart, i. e. , the great intuitive (or non-discursive) organ, to be the interchangeable formula for man in his highest state of capacity for the infinite. Tragedy, romance, fairy tale, or epopee, all alike restore to mans mind the ideals of justice, of hope, of truth, of mercy, of retribution, which else (left to the support of daily life in its realities) would languish for want of sufficient illustration. What is meant, for instance, by poetic justice? ?It does not mean a justice that differs by its object from the ordinary justice of human jurisprudence; for then it must be confessedly a very bad kind of justice; but it means a justice that differs, from common forensic justice by the degree in which it attains its object, a justice that is more omnipotent over its own ends, as dealing? not with the refractory elements of earthly life, but with the elements of its own creation, and with materials flexible to its own purest preconceptions. It is certain that, were it not for the Literature of Power, these ideals would often remain amongst us as mere arid notional forms; whereas, by the creative forces of man put forth in literature, they gain a vernal life of restoration, and germinate into vital activities. The commonest novel, by moving in alliance with human fears and hopes, with human instincts of wrong and right, sustains and quickens those affections. Calling them into action, it rescues them. from torpor. And hence the preeminency, over all authors that merely teach of the meanest that moves, or that teaches, if at all, indirectly by moving. The very highest work that has ever existed in the literature of Knowledge is but a provisional work: a book upon trial and sufferance, and quamdiu bene se gesserit. Let its teaching be even partially revised, let it be but expanded, ? nay, even let its teaching be but placed in a better order, ? and instantly it is superseded. Whereas the feeblest works in the Literature of Power, surviving at all, survive as finished and unalterable amongst men. For instance, the Principia of Sir Isaac Newton was a book militant on earth from the first. In all stages of its progress it would have to fight for its existence: 1st as regards absolute truth; idly, when that combat was over, as regards its form or mode of presenting the truth. And as soon as a La Place, or anybody else, builds higher upon the foundations laid by this book, effectually he throws it out of the sunshine into decay and darkness; by weapons won from this book he superannuates and destroys this book, so that soon the name of Newton remains as a mere nominis umbra, but his book, as a living power, has transmigrated into other forms. Now, on the contrary, the iliad, the Prometheus of Aeschylus, the Othello or King Lear, the Hamlet or Macbeth, and the Paradise Lost are not militant but triumphant forever as long as the languages exist in which they speak or can be taught to speak. They never can transmigrate into new incarnations. To reproduce these in new forms, or variations, even if in some things they should be improved, would be to plagiarize. A good steam engine is properly superseded by a better. But one lovely pastoral valley is not superseded by another, nor a statue of Praxiteles by a statue of Michael Angelo. These things are separated not by  imparity, but by disparity. They are not thought of as unequal under the same standard, but as different in kind, and, if otherwise equal, as equal under a different standard. Human works of immortal beauty and works of nature in one respect stand on the same footing: they never absolutely repeat each other, never approach so near as not to differ; and they differ not as better and worse, or simply by more and less: they differ by undecipherable and incommunicable differences, that cannot be caught by mimicries, that cannot be reflected in the mirror of copies, that cannot become ponderable in the scales of vulgar comparison.

External influences Economy Interest rates Most businesses will need Es

External influences Economy Interest rates Most businesses will need to borrow money. The interest rate will affect how much it costs. External influences Economy Interest rates Most businesses will need to borrow money. The interest rate will affect how much it costs a business to borrow money. If the interest rate is high the money a business owes is more than before. A 20% interest rate rise would affect Cadbury’s; they would have to pay extra money towards the loan. This too would affect Sainsbury's in the same way. Any interest rates that go up will affect a business because the business needs to make up the costs and the only way to do this is to higher the prices of their service or products. The company might have to borrow more money to pay for the interest rate going up. Competition Competition is where rival businesses aim their products at the same customers and try to win and keep their custom. Sainsbury's main competitors are tescos, Asda and Morrison’s. They all sell food and household goods. Asda could sell more food than them so Sainsbury’s would get less customers, Cadbury’s main competition is Masterfoods, coca cola, Walkers and Rowntrees. If Cadbury in the next year didn’t release any more chocolates or sweets and rowntrees released different sweets even though people would still buy Cadburys old ideas they would buy rowntrees new products. This way Cadburys would loose money and they would loose customers buying their ...

A Student Can Succeed Working 15 Hours per Week

A student can succeed working 15 hours per week. This will be successful with careful time budgeting and the selection of the correct job. The student must create a time budget and carefully allocate the hours to each activity for this to work; deviations from the budget will likely result in loss of sleep, loss of grade point average (GPA) or unsatisfactory job performance.The student must allocate time between class participation, homework, exercise, social events and other extracurricular activities.   Use of alcohol and other light drugs should be avoided, but light usage every once in a while during social activities will not unduly upset the time allocations.The time budget consists of the following allocations: 20 hours per week attending classes; 20 hours per week doing homework and lab work; 7 hours per week exercising; and 7 hours per week socializing and doing other extracurricular activities. Note there is no time allocation for the job, that is because homework will be done while on the job. Although the times for exercising and socializing average 1 hour per day, there is no requirement that these activities need to be done on a daily basis. During exam week and at other critical times, the socializing activities can drop down significantly.Selection of the correct job is critical for the success of the work budget. The job must allow the student to do homework while at work. The jobs best suited for the working student include receptionist, evening watchman, intern jobs for the United States Government (including the CIA and NSA), house sitting, or babysitting.   The job can be worked either 3 hours per weekday or 7.5 hours on the weekends. House sitting is ideal, because it provides a free room and generates income. However, house sitting jobs will be the hardest to get.Government intern jobs pay very well but demand a five year commitment after college which may not be appropriate for all students. Also the student must be working on a tech nical degree, have a clean background, and have a high GPA. Evening watchman will likely be the most available job, but typically requires 40 hours per week not 15. Students may be able to convince a potential employer to share the slot so that an entire 8 hour shift can be covered by three students. Job sharing will be successful if the student schedules do not intersect, which may be difficult.The student also needs to eat and sleep. The time budget requires 8 hours per day for sleep and 3 hours per day for eating. The typical day for the student will be to rise at 7 AM and eat breakfast and then work on homework until the first class of the day at 10 AM. The student will eat lunch and then attend afternoon classes until 4 PM.The student will then do homework until it is time for the job. The student should make a dinner and bring it work to eat there. While on the job the student will read and do other homework assignments until the work period has finished. The job should comple te by 10 PM. The student then should walk home (getting exercise) and go to bed at 11 PM. There should be time during various parts of the day to have conversations with friends and work on hobbies such as music performance.The schedule does not allocate time for the weekends. If the student elects to work during the weekends, then there can be more time allocated during the week for socializing and exercise.The student should not keep an entire week of homework until getting to the job, as that will mean missing key points during the lecture period. So if reading is required for a particular class then that reading should be done before the class starts. Writing term papers and essays will be perfect for the weekend hours as that requires focused attention for several hours. The student should ensure that they will be allowed to bring a laptop computer to the job site. The schedule will allow a student to work 15 hours a week and keep a good GPA.   

Advertising Is Protected By The First Amendment Of The...

Research: False Advertising Advertising is protected by the First Amendment of the United States constitution. Conversely, advertising requires less control from the First Amendment, but requires the majority of control from the government and most importantly, the Federal Trade Commission. The Federal Trade Commission controls the content and images that are being advertised to consumers that seem to be exaggerated or just plain over the top. With that being said, false advertising is one of the biggest rising issues amongst many companies, celebrities, business, and much more. False advertising is when an individual(s) attempt to betray consumers into believing they are purchasing an absolutely amazing product, when in reality, they are†¦show more content†¦The Federal Trade Commission enforces these truth-in-advertising laws, and it applies the same standards no matter where an advertisement appears – in newspapers and magazines, online, in the mail, or on billboards or buses.† The Fede ral Trade Commission does not have one clear definition, but it does explain that companies and services are not allowed to exaggerate their content or images in order to advertise to their consumers to purchase a specific product or service. Again, these advertisements can be seen throughout the media as well as in the public. Another legal definition can be found under the Lanham Act where it is defined as, â€Å"Under Section 43(a) of the Lanham Act, a claim can be made against a defendant for false or misleading advertising. For a claim against a defendant for false advertising, the following elements are met and the plaintiff must show: (1) defendant made false or misleading statements as to his own products (or another’s); (2) actual deception, or at least a tendency to deceive a substantial portion of the intended audience; (3) deception is material in that it is likely to influence purchasing decisions; (4) the advertised goods travel in interstate commerce; and (5) a likelihood of injury to plaintiff. However, the plaintiff does not have to prove actual injury.† The Lanham Act has a more specific and