ost ignorant, seldom think rightly; public opinion, being the
opinion of mediocrity, is commonly a mistake and a mischief. But it is
to nobody's interest--it is against the interest of most--to dispute
with it. Public writer and public speaker alike find their account in
confirming "the plain people" in their brainless errors and brutish
prejudices--in glutting their omnivorous vanity and inflaming their
implacable racial and national hatreds.

I have long held the opinion that patriotism is one of the most
abominable vices affecting the human understanding. Every patriot in
this world believes his country better than any other country. Now, they
cannot all be the best; indeed, only one can be the best, and it follows
that the patriots of all the others have suffered themselves to
be misled by a mere sentiment into blind unreason. In its active
manifestation--it is fond of shooting--patriotism would be well enough
if it were simply defensive; but it is also aggressive, and the same
feeling that prompts us to strike for our altars and our fires impels
us likewise to go over the border to quench the fires and overturn the
altars of our neighbors. It is all very pretty and spirited, what the
poets tell us about Thermopylae, but there was as much patriotism at one
end of that pass as there was at the other. Patriotism deliberately and
with folly aforethought subordinates the interests of a whole to the
interests of a part. Worse still, the fraction so favored is determined
by an accident of birth or residence. Patriotism is like a dog which,
having entered at random one of a row of kennels, suffers more in
combats with the dogs in the other kennels than it would have done
by sleeping in the open air. The hoodlum who cuts the tail from a
Chinamen's nowl, and would cut the nowl from the body if he dared,
is simply a patriot with a logical mind, having the courage of his
opinions. Patriotism is fierce as a fever, pitiless as the grave, blind
as a stone and irrational as a headless hen.

There are two ways of clarifying liquids--ebullition and precipitation;
one forces the impurities to the surface as scum, the other sends them
to the bottom as dregs. The former is the more offensive, and that
seems to be our way; but neither is useful if the impurities are merely
separated but not removed. We are told with tiresome iteration that our
social and political systems are clarifying; but when is the skimmer to
appear? If the purpos