"All that we seem to think of is to manage matters so as to do as
little good and plague and disappoint as many people as possible."
--HAZLITT.

It seems to me, either that there is a great deal of human nature
in a pig, or that there is a great deal of pig in human nature. I
find myself always sympathizing with a pig that wishes to go in an
opposite direction to that in which its owner would drive it. It
would be a sufficient reason for me to desire to go eastward, that
a man was behind me, with an oath in his mouth and a very heavy
boot on his foot, endeavoring to drive me westward. We are jealous
of our freedom. We naturally rise in opposition to a will that
undertakes to command our movements. This is not the result of
education at all; it is pure human nature. Command a child--who
shall be only old enough to understand you--to refrain from some
special act, and you excite in his heart a desire to do that act;
and he will have, nine times in ten, no reason for his desire to
do it but your command that he shall not. The youngest human soul
that has a will at all, takes the first occasion to declare its
independence.

Now, I believe this principle in human nature to be, in itself,
good. It is that which declares a man's right to himself--that
which asserts personal liberty in thought, will, and movement. I
believe it existed in Adam and Eve, and that it is more than
likely that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was
despoiled because our beautiful great-grandmother, (for whom I
confess much sympathy and affection,) was forbidden to touch it.
It is a principle which should always be carefully distinguished