What lesson(s) do you think Robert Walton has learned from listening to Victors story and watching him die? (What did Victor tell him to learn from...

As he tells his
story,has offereda number of pieces of advice. At one point, he tells Walton,

Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how
dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his
native town to the the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will
allow.

Victor wants Walton to benefit from his own
experience. Walton's ship has been surrounded by ice for some time, threatening the lives of his
entire crew. Consequently, his men have requested that, if the ship ever becomes free again,
they immediately give up this enterprise and return to England. Walton wants to stay and
continue his exploration, and he says,

The die is cast; I
have consented to return if we are not destroyed. Thus are my hopes blasted by cowardice and
indecision; I come back ignorant and disappointed. It requires more philosophy than I possess to
bear this injustice with patience.

In other words, he has
not learned to check his ambition, to think of knowledge as dangerous (as
Victor has advised). Just as Victor has failed to internalize the advice he, himself, gives
(after all, he berates Walton's crew, telling them it is cowardly to return home without
achieving their mission), neither has Walton. Instead, what Walton has learned is
that he cannot jeopardize the lives of others without their consent. Of the crew,
he tells Victor "'I cannot lead them unwillingly to danger, and I must return.'"
Victor's ambition led to his own ruin, as well as the deaths of his family members and friends.
Walton may be willing to sacrifice himself to danger in the name of
scientific discovery, but he is, now, unwilling to subject his crew to danger to which they do
not consent. This is what he has learned from Victor's story. He is as ambitious as Victor but
not as selfish.