NO ERROR IN JUDGMENT. 



people, so far as they do know, judge as correctly 

 as the learned ; and, indeed, often far more so, 

 because, with ignorant people, observation, the 

 test of truth in judgment, forms a much larger 

 proportion of their thoughts. And indeed we 

 cannot ascribe unsound judgment even to those who 

 err the most in their decisions. The judgments 

 of the mind are in all cases true and accurate, ac- 

 cording to the evidence which is before the mind at 

 the time: and if men were equally in possession of 

 that, the judgment of one man would be just as 

 sound as that of another. If that were not the 

 case, it would be difficult to ' show how any per- 

 son, unlearned or learned, could give any judg- 

 ment at all. As that is a very important point, 

 let us illustrate it by an example : 



Suppose, then, that a man had the evidence of a 

 long and intimate acquaintance, during which you 

 had told him nothing but truth ; suppose him at 

 the same time ignorant of the structure of the 

 mammalia, or quadrupeds with warm blood, and 

 also of the animals of any distant country, as 

 Africa ; and suppose you told him, in your usual 

 friendly and instructive manner, that there had 

 just been discovered, in the interior of Africa, by 

 a traveller who had penetrated farther into it 

 than any former traveller, whole flocks of a new 

 species of creatures, which had four legs, upon 

 which they could run or bound, as fleetly as ante- 

 lopes, and on their shoulders above the fore legs, 

 feathered wings, more powerful than the wings of 

 eagles, by the help of which they could fly over the 

 forests or the deserts at their pleasure : how could 

 the man help believing you ? If he were a mere 

 surface dabbler in natural history, the chance is that 



