ledge and judgment
should always be kept in view as a means of allaying anxiety, whenever
any grievous error appears, whether in art, or science, or practical
life, and gains ground; or when some false and thoroughly perverse
policy of movement is undertaken and receives applause at the hands of
men. No one should be angry, or, still less, despondent; but simply
imagine that the world has already abandoned the error in question,
and now only requires time and experience to recognize of its own
accord that which a clear vision detected at the first glance.

When the facts themselves are eloquent of a truth, there is no need to
rush to its aid with words: for time will give it a thousand tongues.
How long it may be before they speak, will of course depend upon the
difficulty of the subject and the plausibility of the error; but come
they will, and often it would be of no avail to try to anticipate
them. In the worst cases it will happen with theories as it happens
with affairs in practical life; where sham and deception, emboldened
by success, advance to greater and greater lengths, until discovery is
made almost inevitable. It is just so with theories; through the blind
confidence of the blockheads who broach them, their absurdity reaches
such a pitch that at last it is obvious even to the dullest eye. We
may thus say to such people: _the wilder your statements, the better_.

There is also some comfort to be found in reflecting upon all the
whims and crotchets which had their day and have now utterly vanished.
In style, in grammar, in spelling, there are false notions of this
sort which last only three or four years. But when the errors are on
a large scale, while we lament the brevity of human life, we shall
in any case, do well to lag behind our own age when we see it on a
downward path. For there are two ways of not keeping on a level with
the times. A man may be below it; or he may be above it.

ON GENIUS.

No difference of rank, position, or birth, is so great as the gulf
that separates the countless millions who use their head only in the
service of their belly, in other words, look upon it as an instrument
of the will, and those very few and rare persons who have the courage
to say: No! it is too good for that; my head shall be active only in
its own service; it shall try to comprehend the wondrous and varied
spectacle of this world, and then reproduce it in some form, whether
as art or as literature,