everything through this dwarfing philosophy, everything has a great
modicum of humbug. You laugh with him when he derides the humbug in
religion, the humbug in politics, the humbug in love, the humbug in the
plausibilities of the world; but you may cry, my dear pupils, when he
derides what is often the safest of all practically to deride,--the
humbug in common honesty! Men are honest from religion, wisdom,
prejudice, habit, fear, and stupidity; but the few only are wise; and the
persons we speak of deride religion, are beyond prejudice, unawed by
habit, too indifferent for fear, and too experienced for stupidity.




POPULAR WRATH AT INDIVIDUAL IMPRUDENCE.

You must know, my dear young friends, that while the appearance of
magnanimity is very becoming to you, and so forth, it will get you a
great deal of ill-will if you attempt to practise it to your own
detriment. Your neighbours are so invariably, though perhaps insensibly,
actuated by self-interest--self-interest--[Mr. Tomlinson is wrong
here; but his ethics were too much narrowed to Utilitarian
principles.--EDITOR.]--is so entirely, though every twaddler denies it,
the axis of the moral world--that they fly into a rage with him who seems
to disregard it. When a man ruins himself, just hear the abuse he
receives; his neighbours take it as a personal affront!




DUM DEFLUAT AMNIS.