Excerpt from The United States Magazine and Democratic Review, Vol. 3: October, 1838
It is a remark of Chateaubriand, that in a country where all men write and speak, we must make up our minds to hear patiently a great deal of nonsense. The human mind, in its Infinite modifica tions, is prone to exaggerations and extravagancies; it has its day dreams, and its waking visions, its optical illusions, and spectral hallucinations. The most unsound theories are Often the most plau sible; sophistry is often more specious than truth. Talent and integ rity are not always efl’ectual guards against the approaches of false hood they do but lend strength and zeal to the seductions of error. Clear perception of truth is rarer than the ingenious defence of fallacy. It 18 more difficult to think justly than with brilliancy. Common sense is, after all, the most uncommon sense. TO reason well is a rarer faculty than to reason much. For one man, whose deductions are uniformly sound, you will meet with a hundred whose oplnlons are striking In statement, and happy in expression; This world is one vast academy of Laputa, and that satire of the: misanthropist has been drawn from truth. The race of projectors.
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