charged by the
officers of the ship, whom he sees moving about, but the aim of whose
movements he does not understand. The passenger, as regards the
economy of the vessel, is passive; he fails to comprehend, often even
to perceive, the intense functional activity of brain and body which
goes on around him--the real life of the organism.

In the progress of the world, nautical matters of every kind are to
most men what the transactions of a single ship are to the passenger.
They receive impressions, which they mistake for opinions--a most
common form of error. These impressions are repeated from mouth to
mouth, and having the common note of superficial observation, they are
found to possess a certain resemblance. So they serve mutually to
fortify one another, and to constitute a _quasi_ public opinion. The
repetition and stereotyping of impressions are greatly forwarded by
the system of organized gossip which we call the press.

It is in consequence of this, quite as much as of the extravagances
in a certain far from reputable form of journalism, that the power of
the press, great as it unquestionably still is, is not what it should
be. It intensifies the feeling of its own constituents, who usually
take the paper because they agree with it; but if candid
representation of all sides constitutes a fair attempt to instruct the
public, no man expects a matter to be fairly put forward. So far does
this go, in the experience of the present writer, that one of the most
reputable journals in the country, in order to establish a certain
extreme position, quoted his opinion in one paragraph, while omitting
to give the carefully guarded qualification expressed in the very
succeeding paragraph; whereby was conveyed, by implication, the
endorsement of the extreme opinion advocated, which the writer
certainly never held.

Direct misrepresentation, however, whether by commission or by
omission, careless or wilful, is probably less harmful than the
indirect injury produced by continual repetition of unintentional
misconceptions. The former occurs generally in the case of living,
present-moment questions; it reaches chiefly those already convinced;
and it has its counteraction in the arguments of the other party,
which are read by the appropriate constituency. The real work of those
questions of the day goes on behind the scenes; and the press affects
them, not because of its intrinsic power, but only in so far as it is
thought to r