What we are able to judge with feeling is very little; the rest is all prejudice and complaisance.
I had rather have invented the word “overwise” than any other; it certainly does its composer great honour. There are certain people who have got into the habit of making reflections on everything, not because things naturally occur to them, but because they arrive at them by affectation—a proceeding of no use whatever to philosophy. Their reflections are, so to speak, miracles in the world of ideas, and thus are never to be trusted. For as such people only seek to account for anything because they think it their duty, or consider it looks well, they almost invariably miss what is natural; for the difficult and far-fetched is more flattering to the pride out of which they do it than is the natural. This, too, is why great discoveries seem so easy to make—when they have been made. The man of actual understanding, on the other hand, who has not so much wit and brilliance, or at any rate does not trust them so far, comes to his conclusion because he has good grounds for doing so: by similarity thousands are related to me, but by blood only a few. Do I make myself plain? It is on this account that women judge so well—when they begin to be better educated it will be a different matter. Our forefathers saw this, and consulted with women on important occasions. The Gauls even believed that there was something divine in them. Their sense for true beauty is connected with this common sense in the same way as over-wisdom is combined with a
