#1218 Omniscience

Omniscience may be a foible of men, but it is not so of books. Knowledge, as Johnson said, is of two ___ , you may know a thing yourself, and you may know where to find it. Now the amount which you may actually know yourself must, at its best, be limited, but what you may know of the ___ of information may, with proper training, become almost boundless. And here come the ___ and use of reference books-the working of one book in connection with another-and applying your own ___ to both. By this means we get as near to that omniscient volume which tells everything as ever we shall get, and although the single volume or work which tells everything does not exist, there is a vast number of reference books in existence, a knowledge and proper use of which is essential to every intelligent person. Necessary as I believe reference books to be, they can easily be made to be ___ to idleness, and too mechanical a use should not be made of them.