d boils, with whom the greatest care must be taken to
avoid unnecessary handling. And in some people this feeling reaches
such a pass that, if they are talking with anyone, and he exhibits, or
does not sufficiently conceal, his intelligence and discernment, they
look upon it as a downright insult; although for the moment they hide
their ill will, and the unsuspecting author of it afterwards ruminates
in vain upon their conduct, and racks his brain to discover what he
could possibly have done to excite their malice and hatred.

But it is just as easy to flatter and win them over; and this is why
their judgment is usually corrupt, and why their opinions are swayed,
not by what is really true and right, but by the favor of the party or
class to which they belong. And the ultimate reason of it all is, that
in such people force of will greatly predominates over knowledge; and
hence their meagre intellect is wholly given up to the service of the
will, and can never free itself from that service for a moment.

Astrology furnishes a magnificent proof of this miserable subjective
tendency in men, which leads them to see everything only as bearing
upon themselves, and to think of nothing that is not straightway made
into a personal matter. The aim of astrology is to bring the motions
of the celestial bodies into relation with the wretched _Ego_ and to
establish a connection between a comet in the sky and squabbles and
rascalities on earth.[1]

[Footnote 1: See, for instance, Stobasus, _Eclog. I_. xxii. 9.]

SECTION 27. When any wrong statement is made, whether in public or
in society, or in books, and well received--or, at any rate, not
refuted--that that is no reason why you should despair or think there
the matter will rest. You should comfort yourself with the reflection
that the question will be afterwards gradually subjected to
examination; light will be thrown upon it; it will be thought over,
considered, discussed, and generally in the end the correct view will
be reached; so that, after a time--the length of which will depend
upon the difficulty of the subject--everyone will come to understand
that which a clear head saw at once.

In the meantime, of course, you must have patience. He who can see
truly in the midst of general infatuation is like a man whose watch
keeps good time, when all clocks in the town in which he lives are
wrong. He alone knows the right time; but what use is that to him?
for everyone goes by t