or to unreasonable cringings, in
which your welfare, and that of those whom you rule, are sacrificed to
the apprehension of provoking your self-will. Moreover, the fear of
irrational opposition on your part, often tempts those about you into
taking up courses, which, otherwise, they might have thrown aside upon
reflection, or after reasonable converse with you on the subject. You
may have, in the end, to oppose yourself sternly to the wishes of those
whom you would guide wisely; but at any rate give yourself the chance of
having, in the first instance, the full effect of any forces in their own
minds which may be on your side. You cannot expect to have these useful
allies, if your wont is to be blindly obstinate, and to carry things, on
all occasions, by heavy-handed authority. The way in which expected
opposition acts in determining the mind, is not always by creating
immediate wilfulness: but a man, knowing that there is sure to be
objection made, in any particular quarter, to his taking a course,
respecting which he has not made up his own mind, sets to work to put
aside that contingent obstacle to his freedom of action. In doing this,
however, he generates, as it were, a force in the opposite direction: in
arguing against contingent opposition, he is led to make assertions which
he is ashamed to draw back from; and so, in the end, he fails to exercise
an unbiassed judgment. I have gone minutely into this matter; but it
cannot be unimportant for those who rule, to consider well the latent
sources of human motive.

* * * * *

In addressing persons of inferior station, do not be prone to suppose
that there is much occasion for intellectual condescension on your part:
at any rate do not be careless in what you say, as if any thing would do
for them. Observe the almost infinite fleetness of your own powers of
thought, and then consider whether it is likely that education has much
to do with this. Use simple language, but do not fear to put substance
in it: choose, if you like, common materials, but make the best structure
that you can of them: and be assured that method and logical order are
not thrown away upon any one. The rudest audience, as well as the most
refined, soon grows weary, I suspect, of protracted, driftless,
tautology.

* * * * *

Do not dwell more than you can help, upon the differences of nature
between yourself and those with