e health of our mind, like the health of our organs, is simply
a repeated achievement and a happy accident. If such happens to be the
case with the coarse woof and canvas, with the large and approximately
strong threads of our intellect, what are the chances for the ulterior
and superadded embroidery, the subtle and complicated netting forming
reason properly so called, and which is composed of general ideas?
Formed by a slow and delicate process of weaving, through a long system
of signs, amidst the agitation of pride, of enthusiasm and of dogmatic
obstinacy, what risk, even in the most perfect brain, for these ideas
only inadequately to correspond with outward reality! All that we
require in this connection is to witness the operation of the idyll in
vogue with the philosophers and politicians.--These being the superior
minds, what can be said of the masses of the people, of the uncultivated
or semi-cultivated brains? According as reason is crippled in man so is
it rare in humanity. General ideas and accurate reasoning are found only
in a select few. The comprehension of abstract terms and the habit of
making accurate deductions requires previous and special preparation, a
prolonged mental exercise and steady practice, and besides this, where
political matters are concerned, a degree of composure which, affording
every facility for reflection, enables a man to detach himself for
a moment from himself for the consideration of his interests as a
disinterested observer. If one of these conditions is wanting, reason,
especially in relation to politics, is absent.--In a peasant or a
villager, in any man brought up from infancy to manual labor, not only
is the network of superior conceptions defective, but again the internal
machinery by which they are woven is not perfected. Accustomed to the
open air, to the exercise of his limbs, his attention flags if he stands
inactive for a quarter of an hour; generalized expressions find their
way into his mind only as sound; the mental combination they ought to
excite cannot be produced. He becomes drowsy unless a powerful vibrating
voice contagiously arouses in him the instincts of flesh and blood,
the personal cravings, the secret enmities which, restrained by outward
discipline, are always ready to be set free.--In the half-cultivated
mind, even with the man who thinks himself cultivated and who reads the
newspapers, principles are generally disproportionate guests; they are
above