It is
accepted as a truth which is indisputable, that, for seven or eight
centuries, a long succession of able men--some of them of transcendent
acuteness and encyclopaedic knowledge--devoted laborious lives to the
grave discussion of mere frivolities and the arduous pursuit of
intellectual will-o'-the-wisps. To say nothing of a little modesty, a
little impartial pondering over personal experience might suggest a
doubt as to the adequacy of this short and easy method of dealing with
a large chapter of the history of the human mind. Even an acquaintance
with popular literature which had extended so far as to include that
part of the contributions of Sam Slick which contains his weighty
aphorism that "there is a great deal of human nature in all mankind,"
might raise a doubt whether, after all, the men of that epoch, who,
take them all round, were endowed with wisdom and folly in much the
same proportion as ourselves, were likely to display nothing better
than the qualities of energetic idiots, when they devoted their
faculties to the elucidation of problems which were to them, and
indeed are to us, the most serious which life has to offer. Speaking
for myself, the longer I live the more I am disposed to think that
there is much less either of pure folly, or of pure wickedness, in the
world than is commonly supposed. It may be doubted if any sane man
ever said to himself, "Evil, be thou my good," and I have never yet
had the good fortune to meet with a perfect fool.
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