On one occasion he anatomizes the faults of the dissenters, and on another he extols their virtues, "I have inveighed all my life against the insolence of the Tories, and for this I have the authority both of Whigs and Reformers; but then I have occasionally spoken against the imbecility of the Whigs, and the extravagance of the Reformers, and thus have brought all three on my back, though two out of the three regularly agree with all I say of the third party."[15] The strange thing is not that he should have incurred the wrath of all parties, but that he should show surprise at the result. Very often Hazlitt's reflections are the generalization of his personal experience. The essay "On the Disadvantages of Intellectual Superiority" is but a record of the trials to which he was exposed by his morbid sensitiveness and want of social tact, and amid much excellent advice "On the Conduct of Life," there are passages which merely reflect his own marital misfortunes. It is not so much that he is a dupe of his emotions, but in his view of life he attaches a higher importance to feeling than to reason, and so provides a philosophic basis for his strongest prejudices. "Custom, passion, imagination," he declares, "insinuate themselves into and influence almost every judgment we pass or sentiment we indulge, and are a necessary help (as well as hindrance) to the human understanding; to attempt to refer every question to abstract truth and precise definition, without allowing for the frailty of prejudice, which is the unavoidable consequence of the frailty and imperfection of reason, would be to unravel the whole web and texture of human understanding and society."[16]