Here, under the influence of longer thought, the pendulum has swung into common sense, though not quite back to the point from which it started.  Of course, it still keeps swinging about in individual minds.  The other day I read in a newspaper a speech by a youthful rifleman, in which he boasted that no matter to what danger exposed, his corps would never take shelter behind trees and rocks, but would stand boldly out to the aim of the enemy.  I was very glad to find this speech answered in a letter to the Times, written by a rifleman of great experience and proved bravery.  The experienced man pointed out that the inexperienced man was talking nonsense:  that true courage appeared in manfully facing risks which were inevitable, but not in running into needless peril:  and that the business of a soldier was to be as useful to his country and as destructive to the enemy as possible, and not to make needless exhibitions of personal foolhardiness.  Thus swings the pendulum as to danger and fear.  The point of departure, the primary impulse, is,

1.  An impulse to avoid danger at all hazards:  i. e., to run away, and save yourself, however discreditably.

The pendulum swings to the other extremity, and we have the secondary impulse—­

2.  An impulse to disregard danger, and even to run into it, as if it were of no consequence at all; i. e., young rifleman foolhardiness, and Red Indian insensibility.

The pendulum comes so far back, and rests at the point of wisdom: 

3.  A determination to avoid all danger, the running into which would do no good, and which may be avoided consistently with honour; but manfully to face danger, however great, that comes in the way of duty.

But after all this deviation from the track, I return to my list of Secondary Vulgar Errors, run into with good and honest intentions.  Here is the first—­

Don’t you know, my reader, that it is natural to think very bitterly of the misconduct which affects yourself?  If a man cheats your friend, or cheats your slight acquaintance, or cheats some one who is quite unknown to you, by selling him a lame horse, you disapprove his conduct, indeed, but not nearly so much as if he had cheated yourself.  You learn that Miss Limejuice has been disseminating a grossly untrue account of some remarks which you made in her hearing:  and your first impulse is to condemn her malicious falsehood, much more severely than if she had merely told a few lies about some one else.  Yet it is quite evident that if we were to estimate the doings of men with perfect justice, we should fix solely on the moral element in their doings; and the accidental circumstance of the offence or injury to ourselves would be neither here nor there.  The primary vulgar error, then, in this case is, undue and excessive disapprobation of misconduct from which we have suffered.  No one but a very stupid person would, if it were fairly put to him, maintain that