GENERAL VIEW OF THE SUBJECT.--HUMBUG UNIVERSAL.--IN RELIGION.--IN POLITICS.--IN BUSINESS.--IN SCIENCE.--IN MEDICINE.--HOW IS IT TO CEASE.--THE GREATEST HUMBUG OF ALL. A little reflection will show that humbug is an astonishingly wide-spread phenomenon--in fact almost universal. And this is true, although we exclude crimes and arrant swindles from the definition of it, according to the somewhat careful explanation which is given in the beginning of the chapter succeeding this one. I apprehend that there is no sort of object which men seek to attain, whether secular, moral or religious, in which humbug is not very often an instrumentality. Religion is and has ever been a chief chapter of human life. False religions are the only ones known to two thirds of the human race, even now, after nineteen centuries of Christianity; and false religions are perhaps the most monstrous, complicated and thorough-going specimens of humbug that can be found. And even within the pale of Christianity, how unbroken has been the succession of impostors, hypocrites and pretenders, male and female, of every possible variety of age, sex, doctrine and discipline! Politics and government are certainly among the most important of practical human interests. Now it was a diplomatist--that is, a practical manager of one kind of government matters--who invented that wonderful phrase--a whole world full of humbug in half-a-dozen words--that "Language was given to us to conceal our thoughts." It was another diplomatist, who said "An ambassador is a gentleman sent to _lie_ abroad for the good of his country." But need I explain to my own beloved countrymen that there is humbug in politics? Does anybody go into a political campaign without it? are no exaggerations of _our_ candidate's merits to be allowed? no depreciations of the _other_ candidate? Shall we no longer prove that the success of the party opposed to us will overwhelm the land in ruin? Let me see. Leaving out the two elections of General Washington, eighteen times that very fact has been proved by the party that was beaten, and immediately we have _not_ been ruined, notwithstanding that the dreadful fatal fellows on the other side got their hands on the offices and their fingers into the treasury.