The
principle of the _vis inerti?¦_, for example, seems to be identical in
physics and metaphysics. It is not more true in the former, that a
large body is with more difficulty set in motion than a smaller one,
and that its subsequent momentum is commensurate with this difficulty,
than it is, in the latter, that intellects of the vaster capacity,
while more forcible, more constant, and more eventful in their
movements than those of inferior grade, are yet the less readily
moved, and more embarrassed and full of hesitation in the first few
steps of their progress. Again: have you ever noticed which of the
street signs, over the shop-doors, are the most attractive of
attention?"
"I have never given the matter a thought," I said.
"There is a game of puzzles," he resumed, "which is played upon a
map. One party playing requires another to find a given word--the name
of town, river, state, or empire--any word, in short, upon the motley
and perplexed surface of the chart. A novice in the game generally
seeks to embarrass his opponents by giving them the most minutely
lettered names; but the adept selects such words as stretch, in large
characters, from one end of the chart to the other. These, like the
over-largely lettered signs and placards of the street, escape
observation by dint of being excessively obvious; and here the
physical oversight is precisely analogous with the moral
inapprehension by which the intellect suffers to pass unnoticed those
considerations which are too obtrusively and too palpably
self-evident.
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