2. An impulse to disregard danger, and even to run into it, as if
it were of no consequence at all; i. e., young rifleman foolhardiness,
and Red Indian insensibility.

The pendulum comes so far back, and rests at the point of wisdom:

3. A determination to avoid all danger, the running into which would
do no good, and which may be avoided consistently with honour; but
manfully to face danger, however great, that comes in the way of
duty.

But after all this deviation from the track, I return to my list of
Secondary Vulgar Errors, run into with good and honest intentions.
Here is the first--

Don't you know, my reader, that it is natural to think very bitterly
of the misconduct which affects yourself? If a man cheats your
friend, or cheats your slight acquaintance, or cheats some one who
is quite unknown to you, by selling him a lame horse, you disapprove
his conduct, indeed, but not nearly so much as if he had cheated
yourself. You learn that Miss Limejuice has been disseminating a
grossly untrue account of some remarks which you made in her hearing:
and your first impulse is to condemn her malicious falsehood, much
more severely than if she had merely told a few lies about some
one else. Yet it is quite evident that if we were to estimate the
doings of men with perfect justice, we should fix solely on the
moral element in their doings; and the accidental circumstance
of the offence or injury to ourselves would be neither here nor
there. The primary vulgar error, then, in this case is, undue and
excessive disapprobation of misconduct from which we have suffered.