Ignorance,
sheer ignorance, takes whatever is done under it out of the region of
volition. Nothing is willed but what is known. An ignorant man is as
excusable as a drunken one, as such,--no more and no less. The
difference is, that drunkenness generally is voluntary; ignorance
often is not. But ignorance may be voluntary, quite as voluntary as
drunkenness. It is a capital folly of our age to deny the possibility
of voluntary intellectual error. Error is often voluntary, and (where
the matter is one that the person officially or otherwise is required
to know) immoral too. A strange thing it is to say that "it is as
unmeaning to speak of the immorality of an intellectual mistake as it
would be to talk of the colour of a sound." (Lecky, _European Morals_,
ii., 202.)
4. There is an ignorance that is sought on purpose, called _affected
ignorance_ (in the Shakspearian sense of the word _affect_), as when a
man will not read begging-letters, that he may not give anything away.
Such ignorance does not hinder voluntariness. It indicates a strong
will of doing or omitting, come what may. There is yet another
ignorance called _crass_, which is when a man, without absolutely
declining knowledge, yet takes no pains to acquire it in a matter
where he is aware that truth is important to him.
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