The Daily Dispatch: may 2, 1862., [Electronic resource], Human nature.

Home Collections/Texts Perseus Catalog Research Grants Open Source About Help

Hide browse bar Your current position in the text is marked in blue. Click anywhere in the line to jump to another position:

This text is part of:

Human nature.

--For the benefit of the people of the present day, we make the following extract from volume three, Macaulay's History of England:

It is the nature of man to overrate present evil, and to underrate present good; to long for what he has not, and to be dissatisfied with what he has. This propensity, as it appears in individuals, has often been noticed both by laughing and weeping philosophers. It was a favorite theme both of Horace and Pascal, of Voltaire and of Johnson. To its influence on the late of great communities may be ascribed most of the revolutions and counter-revolutions recorded in history.

* * Down to the present hour, rejoicing like those on the shore of the Red Sea have ever been speedily followed by murmuring at the waters of Strife. The most just and salutary revolution cannot produce all the good that has been expected from it by men of uninstructed minds and sanguine tempers. Even the wisest cannot, while it is still recent, weigh quite fairly the evils which it has removed. For the evils which it has caused are felt, and the evils which it has removed are felt no longer.

The Daily Dispatch: may 2, 1862. Richmond Dispatch. 4 pages. by Cowardin & Hammersley. Richmond. may 2, 1862. microfilm. Ann Arbor, Mi : Proquest. 1 microfilm reel ; 35 mm.

Institute of Museum and Library Services National Leadership Grant provided support for entering this text.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar:

The Daily Dispatch: may 2, 1862., [Electronic resource]

This text is part of:

Table of Contents:

Human nature.