and disappointments. _Rationalizing is the self-exculpation which
occurs when we feel ourselves, or our group, accused of
misapprehension or error._

The little word _my_ is the most important one in all human affairs,
and properly to reckon with it is the beginning of wisdom. It has the
same force whether it is _my_ dinner, _my_ dog, and _my_ house,
or _my_ faith, _my_ country, and _my God_. We not only resent the
imputation that our watch is wrong, or our car shabby, but that our
conception of the canals of Mars, of the pronunciation of "Epictetus",
of the medicinal value of salicine, or the date of Sargon I, are
subject to revision.

Philosophers, scholars, and men of science exhibit a common
sensitiveness in all decisions in which their _amour propre_ is
involved. Thousands of argumentative works have been written to vent a
grudge. However stately their reasoning, it may be nothing but
rationalizing, stimulated by the most commonplace of all motives.
A history of philosophy and theology could be written in terms of
grouches, wounded pride, and aversions, and it would be far more
instructive than the usual treatments of these themes. Sometimes,
under Providence, the lowly impulse of resentment leads to great
achievements. Milton wrote his treatise on divorce as a result of his
troubles with his seventeen-year-old wife, and when he was accused of
being the leading spirit in a new sect, the Divorcers, he wrote his
noble _Areopagitica_ to prove his right to say what he thought fit,
and incidentally to establish the advantage of a free press in the
promotion of Truth.

All mankind, high and low, thinks in all the ways which have been