But
orthodox public opinion is obliged by the necessities of its own
situation to exaggerate the truth of its favorite interpretation; and
any such exaggeration is attended with grave dangers, precisely because
the ambiguous nature of the principle itself gives a similar ambiguity
to its violations. The cheating is understood as disobedience to the
actual law, or as violation of a Higher Law, according to the interests
and preconceptions of the different reformers; but however it is
understood, they believe themselves to be upholding some kind of a Law,
and hence endowed with some kind of a sacred mission.
Thus the want of integrity in what is supposed to be the formative
principle of democracy results, as it did before the Civil War, in a
division of the actual substance of the nation. Men naturally disposed
to be indignant at people with whom they disagree come to believe that
their indignation is comparable to that of the Lord. Men naturally
disposed to be envious and suspicious of others more fortunate than
themselves come to confuse their suspicions with a duty to the society.
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