money with your companions, you say you have been sharing booty, you have committed an offence against the laws of your country; but if you observe that you have been sharing with your friends the gains of your industry, you have performed one of the noblest actions of humanity. To knock a man on the head is neither virtuous nor guilty, but it depends upon the language applied to the action to make it murder or glory.[1] Why not say, then, that you have testified 'the courage of a hero,' rather than 'the atrocity of the ruffian?' This is perfectly clear, is it not?"
"It seems so," answered Paul.
"It is so self-evident, that it is the way all governments are carried on. If you want to rectify an abuse, those in power call you disaffected. Oppression is 'order,' extortion is 'reli-
- ↑ We observe in a paragraph from an American paper, copied without comment into the Morning Chronicle of to-day, a singular proof of the truth of Tomlinson's philosophy. "Mr. Rowland Stephenson (so runs the extract), the celebrated English Banker, has just purchased a considerable tract of land, &c." Most philosophical of Paragraphists! "Celebrated English Banker!" that sentence is a better illustration of verbal fallacies, than all Bentham's treatises put together—"celebrated!" O Mercury, what a dexterous epithet!
