CHAPTER V.
THE PRAISE OF WISDOM.
'Thou hast kept the good wine until now, for 'good wine'
well describes the glorious little treatise at the head of our
Book of Proverbs (i. 7-ix. 18). I do not think it is right to
infer from the heading in i. 1 that its unknown author assumed
the mask of Solomon. In itself such a hypothesis would not
be incredible. We have the analogy of the Egyptian scribe
who represents Amenemhat I. 'rising up like a god' and addressing
to his son some instructions on the royal art of
governing.[1] But it is more natural to explain the heading as
a repetition of the formula in x. 1, for the 'Praise of Wisdom'
(to coin another title) is in fact the introduction to the following
anthology,[2] together with which and its appendices it forms
the 'older book of Proverbs.' If we ask why an introduction
was prefixed, the answer must be that the writer wished to
recommend his own inspiring view of practical ethics as a
branch of divine wisdom; in other words, to counteract the
sometimes commonplace morality of the earlier proverbs
by enveloping the reader in a purer and more ethereal atmosphere.
The key-note of the anthology is nothing but Experience;
that of the introductory treatise is Divine Teaching.
It is a sign of moral progress that the editor of an anthology
of Experience should have thought his work only half-done
till he had prefixed the 'Praise of Wisdom.' As a wise
teacher of our own time[3] has observed, 'It would not be untrue
to say that in all essential points Experience is the teacher
