First Sentence

"THERE has always been a widespread belief that some men know more than others, and that instead of sharing certain aspects of their knowledge with their fellow-men, as they were willing, nay eager, to do with certain other aspects of it, they kept them sedulously to themselves, or communicated them only to a chosen few, whom they either bound to inviolable secrecy, or permitted to impart the knowledge in their turn only to those who were prepared to assume the same obligations and who were judged worthy to receive this great privilege."