Guilty. We like to conclude that if a man be not very good, then
he is very bad; if not very clever, then very stupid; if not very
wise, then a fool: whereas in fact, the man probably is a curious
mixture of good and evil, strength and weakness, wisdom and folly,
knowledge and ignorance, cleverness and stupidity.

Let it be here remarked, that in speaking of it as an error to
take reverse of wrong for right, I use the words in their ordinary
sense, as generally understood. In common language the reverse
of a thing is taken to mean the thing at the opposite end of
the scale from it. Thus, black is the reverse of white, bigotry
of latitudinarianism, malevolence of benevolence, parsimony of
extravagance, and the like. Of course, in strictness, these things
are not the reverse of one another. In strictness, the reverse of
wrong always is right; for, to speak with severe precision, the
reverse of steering upon Scylla is simply not steering upon Scylla;
the reverse of being extravagant is not being parsimonious--it is
simply not being extravagant; the reverse of walking eastward is
not walking westward--it is simply not walking eastward. And that
may include standing still, or walking to any point of the compass
except the east. But I understand the reverse of a thing as meaning
the opposite extreme from it. And you see, the Latin words quoted
above are more precise than the English. It is severely true, that
while fools think to shun error on one side, they run into the
contrary error--i. e., the error that lies equi-distant, or nearly
equi-distant, on the other side of the line of right.

One class of the errors into which men are prone to run under this
natural impulse are those which have been termed Secondary Vulgar
Errors. A vulgar error, you will understand, my reader, does not