Excerpt from Impressions of Theophrastus Such: Miscellaneous Essays Thus, if I laugh at you, O fellow-men! If I trace with curious interest your labyrinthine self-delu sions, note the inconsistencies in your zealous ad hesions, and smile at your helpless endeavours in a rashly chosen part, it is not that I feel myself aloof from you; the more intimately I seem to discern your weaknesses, the stronger to me is the proof that I share them. How otherwise could I get the discernment? - for even what we are averse to, what we vow not to entertain, must have shaped or shadowed itself within us as a possibility, before we can think of exorcising it. No man can know his brother simply as a spectator. Dear blunderers, I am one of you. I wince at the fact, but I am not ignorant of it, that I too am laughable on un suspected occasions; nay, in the very tempest and whirlwind of my anger, I include myself under my own indignation. If the human race has a bad reputation, I perceive that I cannot escape being compromised. And thus, While I carry in myself the key to other men's experience, it is only by Observing others that I can so far correct my self ignorance as to arrive at the certainty that I am liable to commit myself unawares, and to manifest some incompetency, which I know no more of than the blind man knows of his image in the glass. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.