stupidity. And any pretext that they are exhibited with an honest
intention to do right, ought to be regarded as a transparently
false pretext.

I have now before me a list (prepared by a much stronger hand
than mine) of honest cases in which men, avoiding Scylla, run into
Charybdis: in which men, thinking to bend the crooked twig straight,
bend it backwards. But before mentioning these, it may be remarked,
that there is often such a thing as a reaction from a natural
tendency, even when that natural tendency is not towards what may
be called a primary vulgar error. The law of reaction extends to
all that human beings can ever feel the disposition to think or do.
There are, doubtless, minds of great fixity of opinion and motive:
and there are certain things, in the case of almost all men, as
regards which their belief and their active bias never vary through
life: but with most human beings, with nations, with humankind,
as regards very many and very important matters, as surely and as
far as the pendulum has swung to the right, so surely and so far
will it swing to the left. I do not say that an opinion in favour
of monarchy is a primary vulgar error; or that an opinion in favour
of republicanism is a secondary: both may be equally right: but
assuredly each of these is a reaction from the other. America, for
instance, is one great reaction from Europe. The principle on which
these reactionary swings of the pendulum take place, is plain.
Whatever be your present position, you feel its evils and drawbacks
keenly. Your feeling of the present evil is much more vivid than
your imagination of the evil which is sure to be inherent in the
opposite system, whatever that may be. You live in a country where
the national Church is Presbyterian. You see, day by day, many
inconveniences and disadvantages inherent in that form of church