With the art of
Writing, of which Printing is a simple, an inevitable and comparatively
insignificant corollary, the true reign of miracles for mankind commenced.
It related, with a wondrous new contiguity and perpetual closeness, the
Past and Distant with the Present in time and place; all times and all
places with this our actual Here and Now. All things were altered for men;
all modes of important work of men: teaching, preaching, governing, and
all else.
To look at Teaching, for instance. Universities are a notable, respectable
product of the modern ages. Their existence too is modified, to the very
basis of it, by the existence of Books. Universities arose while there
were yet no Books procurable; while a man, for a single Book, had to give
an estate of land. That, in those circumstances, when a man had some
knowledge to communicate, he should do it by gathering the learners round
him, face to face, was a necessity for him. If you wanted to know what
Abelard knew, you must go and listen to Abelard.
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