1830.] Aphorisms on Man. 5 73 



very convenient division of labour ; and each class fulfils its vocation. 

 It is essential to the triumph of reform that it should never succeed, 



XVII. 



We talk about the cant of politics or religion, as if there were no cant 

 but that which is common to the multitude. But whenever any two 

 individuals agree about any one thing, they begin to cant about it, and 

 take the echo of one another's voices for the verdict of truth. Half-a- 

 dozen persons will always make a quorum of credulity and vulgarity. 



XVIII. 



When people have done quarrelling about one set of questions they 

 start another. Motion is necessary to mind as much as to matter ; and 

 for "an ultimate end/' Hobbes denies that there is any such thing. 

 Hence the tendency to all Ultra opinions and measures ! Man is seldom 

 contented to go as far as others, unless he can go beyond them, and make 

 a caricature and a paradox even of the most vulgar prejudice. It is. 

 necessary to aim at some kind of distinction to create some difficulty, 

 were it only for the sake of overcoming it. Thus we find that O'Connell, 

 having carried his cause, would not let the (e agitation" subside without 

 turning it into a personal quarrel : the way was opened to him into the 

 House, and he wanted to force his way there by an ex post facto inference; 

 the banns of marriage were published between him and parliament, and he 

 would fain, with the petulance of opposition, seize a seat there. 



XIX. 



Truth itself becomes but a fashion. When all the world acknowledge 

 it, it seems trite and stale. It is tinged by the coarse medium 

 through which it passes. 



XX. 



Erasmus, in his " Remains," tells a story of two thieves, who were 

 recommended by their mother to rob every one they met with ; but 

 warned, on peril of their lives, to avoid one Black-breeches (Hercules). 

 Meeting him, however, without knowing him, they set upon him, and were 

 slung across his shoulder, where Hercules heard them muttering behind 

 his back, a long way off, "This must surely be he that our mother 

 warned us of." In contempt and pity he let them escape. What 

 modern wit can come up to the grotesque grandeur of this invention ? 



XXI. 



People addicted to secresy are so without knowing why ; they are so 

 not " for cause," but for secresy's sake. It is a mixture of cowardice 

 and conceit. They think, if they tell you any thing, you may under- 

 stand it better than they do, or turn it in some way against them ; but 

 that while they shut up their mouths they are wiser than you, just as 

 liars think by telling you a falsehood they have an advantage over you. 

 There are others who deal in significant nods, smiles, and half-sentences, 

 so that you never can get at their meaning, and indeed they have none, 

 but leave it to you to put what interpretation you please on their embryo 

 hints and conceptions. They are glad to find a proxy for their want of 

 understanding. 



