m happily in spite of herself. It is not through
prejudice that you run to the help of an unknown child about to fall
into a precipice, or be eaten by a beast.

But it is through prejudice that you will respect a man clad in certain
clothes, walking gravely, speaking likewise. Your parents have told you
that you should bow before this man; you respect him before knowing
whether he merits your respect; you grow in years and in knowledge; you
perceive that this man is a charlatan steeped in arrogance,
self-interest and artifice; you despise what you revered, and the
prejudice cedes to judgment. Through prejudice you have believed the
fables with which your childhood was cradled; you have been told that
the Titans made war on the gods, and Venus was amorous of Adonis; when
you are twelve you accept these fables as truths; when you are twenty
you look on them as ingenious allegories.

Let us examine briefly the different sorts of prejudices, so as to set
our affairs in order. We shall be perhaps like those who, at the time of
Law's system, perceived that they had calculated imaginary riches.

PREJUDICES OF THE SENSES

Is it not strange that our eyes always deceive us, even when we have
very good sight, and that on the contrary our ears do not deceive us?
Let your well-informed ear hear "You are beautiful, I love you"; it is
quite certain that someone has not said "I hate you, you are ugly": but
you see a smooth mirror; it is demonstrated that you are mistaken, it
has a very uneven surface. You see the sun as about two feet in
diameter; it is demonstrated that it is a million times bigger than the
earth.

It seems that God has put truth in your ears, and error in your eyes;
but study optics, and you will see that God has not deceived you, and
that it is impossible for objects to appear to you otherwise than you
see them in the present state of things.

PHYSICAL PREJUDICES

The sun rises, the moon also, the earth is motionless: these are natural
physical prejudices. But that lobsters are good for the blood, because
when cooked they are red; that eels cure paralysis because they wriggle;
that the moon affects our maladies because one day someone observed that
a sick man had an increase of fever during the waning of the moon; these
ideas and a thousand others are the errors of ancient charlatans who
judged without reasoning, and who, being deceived, deceived others.

HISTORICAL PREJUDICES

Most historical stori