This heterogeneous mass of
considerations forms the mental pabulum with which we feed our minds.
How that pabulum becomes amalgamated, reduced to uniformity and
turned into the growth of complete opinion we can no more tell than
we can say when, how and where food becomes flesh and blood. All we
can say is that the miracle, stupendous as it is and involving the
stultification of every intelligible principle on which thought and
action are based, is nevertheless worked a thousand times an hour by
every one of us.
The formation of public opinion is as mysterious as that of
individual, but, so far as we can form any opinion about that which
forms our opinions in such large measure, the processes appear to
resemble one another much as rain drops resemble one another. There
is essential agreement in spite of essential difference. So that
here, as everywhere else, we no sooner scratch the soil than we come
upon the granite of contradiction in terms and can scratch no
further.
As for ourselves, we are passing through an inductive, technical,
speculative period and have gone such lengths in this direction that
a reaction, during which we shall pass to the other extreme, may be
confidently predicted.
The Art of Propagating Opinion
He who would propagate an opinion must begin by making sure of his
ground and holding it firmly. There is as little use in trying to
breed from weak opinion as from other weak stock, animal or
vegetable.
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