Can man be credited with choosing the right path when he knows only one? Can he be congratulated for his wise decision when only one judgment is possible? If he knows nothing of vice, is he to be praised for adhering to virtue?
From the day when the first man tasted the forbidden fruit, he has been struggling with the choice between good and evil, but without his full awareness of the pleasing taste of that apple, or even of its existence, would he be worthy of praised for forbearing to eat it?
Wisdom consists of the deliberate exercise of judgment; knowledge comes in the discrimination between those known alternatives. Weighing these alternatives is the way of maturity. Only then does man have the strength to follow his choice without wavering, since that choice is based firmly on knowledge rather than on an uncertain, dangerously shallow foundation of ignorance.
