ts or sentiments arise in my mind
or heart, as if to match or correspond with the expression.' This
response of the school-boy lies at the bottom of all the spurious
profundity which has been attributed to Rochefoucault, to La Bougive,
to Machiavelli, and to Campanella."

"And the identification," I said, "of the reasoner's intellect with
that of his opponent, depends, if I understand you aright, upon the
accuracy with which the opponent's intellect is admeasured."

"For its practical value it depends upon this," replied Dupin; "and
the Prefect and his cohort fail so frequently, first, by default of
this identification, and, secondly, by ill-admeasurement, or rather
through non-admeasurement, of the intellect with which they are
engaged. They consider only their _own_ ideas of ingenuity; and, in
searching for anything hidden, advert only to the modes in which
_they_ would have hidden it. They are right in this much--that their
own ingenuity is a faithful representative of that of _the mass_; but
when the cunning of the individual felon is diverse in character from
their own, the felon foils them of course. This always happens when it
is above their own, and very usually when it is below. They have no
variation of principle in their investigations; at best, when urged by
some unusual emergency--by some extraordinary reward--they extend
or exaggerate their old modes of _practice_, without touching their
principles. What, for example, in this case of D----, has been done to
vary the principle of action? What is all this boring, and probing,
and sounding, and scrutinizing with the microscope, and dividing the
surface of the building into registered square inches--what is it all
but an exaggeration of the application of the one principle or set
of principles of search, which are based upon the one set of notions
retarding human ingenuity, to which the Prefect, in the long routine
of his duty, has been accustomed? Do you not see he had taken it for
granted that _all_ men proceed to conceal a letter, not exactly in
a gimlet-hole bored in a chair-leg, but, at least, in _some_
out-of-the-way hole or corner suggested by the same tenor of thought
which would urge a man to secrete a letter in a gimlet-hole bored in a
chair-leg? And do you not see, also, that such _recherche_ nooks for
concealment are adapted only for ordinary occasions, and would be
adopted only by ordinary intellects; for, in all cases of concealment,
a disposal