On a winter walk, poet William Cowper relished the quiet of the countryside, where the sounds were of birdsong. In such surroundings, he said, the distinction between knowledge and wisdom becomes clearer: book-learned knowledge can only be bricks and mortar, whereas wisdom alone is an architect that can turn them into a building with a purpose.

Pursuing his distinction between knowledge and wisdom, Cowper shows how book-learning has gained an undeserved honour, because the public is dazzled by academic reputation or eloquence, and rarely subjects the authors to a proper critique. More can be learned, he concluded, in a moment’s insight on a country walk than in many hours spent in a library.

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