rumour credits them, they are never mistaken. It is merely not true.
Women are constantly quite wrong in the estimates based on their
"feminine instinct"; they sometimes even admit it; and the matrimonial
courts prove it _passim_. Children are more often wrong than women. And
as for dogs, it is notorious that they are for ever being taken in by
plausible scoundrels; the perspective of dogs is grotesque. Not seldom
have I grimly watched the gradual disillusion of deceived dogs.
Nevertheless, the sentimental legend of the infallibility of women,
children, and dogs, will persist in Anglo-Saxon countries.




III


One is curious about one's fellow-creatures: therefore one watches them.
And generally the more intelligent one is, the more curious one is, and
the more one observes. The mere satisfaction of this curiosity is in
itself a worthy end, and would alone justify the business of
systematised observation. But the aim of observation may, and should, be
expressed in terms more grandiose. Human curiosity counts among the
highest social virtues (as indifference counts among the basest
defects), because it leads to the disclosure of the causes of character
and temperament and thereby to a better understanding of the springs of
human conduct. Observation is not practised directly with this high end
in view (save by prigs and other futile souls); nevertheless it is a
moral act and must inevitably promote kindliness--whether we like it or
not. It also sharpens the sense of beauty. An ugly deed--such as a deed
of cruelty--takes on artistic beauty when its origin and hence its