I’ve spent most of the day writing a lecture, which took me back to a lovely book I read a decade ago, Roy Porter’s [amazon_link id=”014025028X” target=”_blank” ]Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World[/amazon_link]. It ranges widely over the sciences, arts, commerce, politics and philosophy but I particularly like Porter’s emphasis on Britain as a nation of intellectuals – given how anti-intellectual modern public discourse has been. Although maybe that’s changing again thanks to the excitement of technology, the blogosphere and the gathering of like minds on Twitter – not to mention the times we are in, which rather demand that any sentient person spends some time thinking about the world.

Anyway, I liked this concluding quotation, from William Hazlitt of the writer Thomas Holcroft:

“He believed that truth had a natural superiority over error, if it could only be heard; that if once discovered, it must, being left to itself, soon spread and triumph; and that the art of printing would not only accelerate this effect, but would prevent those accidents which had rendered the moral and intellectual progress of mankind, hitherto so slow, irregular and uncertain.”

Substitute ‘internet’ for ‘printing’ and it bears the test of time as a statement of enduring hopes.

[amazon_image id=”014025028X” link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World (Allen Lane History)[/amazon_image]