men with little or no respect of merit, and that fraud, however beneficial temporarily and in a coarse, pecuniary view, is ruinous, if we regard the sum total of our existence. There are many opinions so commonly entertained and so frequently expressed, that although they have not perhaps attained the fixed form of an adage, yet they have the operation, and may be considered in the light, of proverbs. These opinions may be divided into two classes--generalities in general, and generalities in particular. The first arise from men's observing a few instances of a given fact, and erecting these instances into an all-embracing rule. They consist in such unqualified assertions as these--'Americans are money-worshippers: Frenchmen are fops: religionists are hypocrites: doctors are pretenders: lawyers are knaves: politicians are time-servers. These may be termed generalities in general, and they generally amount to falsehoods in particular. Unqualified assertions are usually qualified lies; for every thing in this world is a commixture of good and evil. What is good at one time, is bad at another; or what is good in itself is bad from its circumstances and adjuncts, or bad in comparison with something better. He, therefore, who affirms a tiling to be good or bad absolutely, entirely, and at all times, commonly affirms more than is true, or, in other words, affirms a restricted falsehood. Generalities in particular are derivative generalities, and the detection of their falsity requires a double analysis. After generalities in general have been established by a course of false reasoning, generalities in particular are inferred by a process of similar sophistry reversed, and an unfair deduction from an unsound predicate derives specific falsehoods from a generical untruth. Like that famous tree of the Indies, whose branches droop downward to the ground, and take root, and rise again, and descend once more, and rise afresh, till the central trunk is guarded by a youthful forest, and clings to its native earth by a thousand vegetable arms; so one of these comprehensive untruths sends forth its ramifications of mistake, which spring upward in a fresh growth of reproductive errors, till they are all fastened to the soil of the social mind by numberless and ineradicable roots, and the parent falsehood stands, surrounded by a giant progeny of lies. Here is the reasoning. Such a class of men are bad in general; _therefore_, this particular individual is worthless. Lawyers are usually dishonest men; _ergo_, this individual lawyer is a knave.' Here is the same beautiful logic reversed. 'I have heard of _some_ cruel slave-holders; _therefore_, every slave-holder is a bloody tyrant. I have seen _some_ haughty and oppressive 'millionaires;' _ergo_, all the opulent are purse-proud and unfeeling aristocrats.' These are the foolish generalities of opinion and assertion, which have caused so many misunderstandings, suspicions, antipathies, and