Still, the great thing about man is the mind; and when I set out by declaring that almost every man is unsound, I was thinking of mental unsoundness.  Most minds are unsound.  No horse is accepted as sound in which the practised eye of the veterinarian can find some physical defect, something, away from normal development and action.  And if the same rule be applied to us, my readers; if every man is mentally a screw, in whose intellectual and moral development a sharp eye can detect something not right in the play of the machinery or the formation of it; then I fancy that we may safely lay it down as an axiom, that there is not upon the face of the earth a perfectly sane man.  A sane mind means a healthy mind; that is, a mind that is exactly what it ought to be.  Where shall we discover such a one?  My reader, you have not got it.  I have not got it.  Nobody has got it.  No doubt, at the first glance, this seems startling; but I intend this essay to be a consolatory one, and I wish to show you that in this world it is well if means will fairly and decently suffice for their ends, even though they be very far from being all that we could wish.  God intends not that this world should go on upon a system of optimism.  It is enough, if things are so, that they will do.  They might do far better.  And let us remember, that though a veterinary surgeon would tell you that there is hardly such a thing as a perfectly sound horse in Britain, still in Britain there is very much work done, and well done, by horses.  Even so, much work, fair work, passable work, noble work, magnificent work, may be turned off, and day by day is turned off, by minds which, in strict severity, are no better than good, workable, or showy screws.

Many minds, otherwise good and even noble, are unsound upon the point of Vanity.  Nor is the unsoundness one that requires any very sharp observer to detect.  It is very often extremely conspicuous; and the merest block-head can discern, and can laugh at, the unfortunate defect in one who is perhaps a great and excellent man.  Many minds are off the balance in the respect of Suspiciousness; many in that of absurd Prejudice.  Many are unsound in the matters of Silliness, Pettiness, Pettedness, Perversity, or general Unpleasantness and Thrawn-ness.  Multitudes of men are what in Scotland is called Cat-witted.  I do not know whether the word is intelligible in England.  It implies a combination of littleness of nature, small self-conceit, readiness to take offence, determination in little things to have one’s own way, and general impracticability.  There are men to whom even the members of their own families do not like to talk about their plans and views:  who will suddenly go off on a long journey without telling anyone in the house till the minute before they go; and concerning whom their nearest relatives think it right to give you a hint that they are rather peculiar in temper, and you must mind how you talk to them.