"I was not gone far before I heard the sound of trumpets and alarms, which seemed to proclaim the march of an Enemy; and as I afterwards found was in reality what I apprehended it. There appeared at a great distance a very shining light, and in the midst of it a person of most beautiful aspect; her name was _Truth_. On her right hand, there marched a male deity, who bore several quivers on his shoulders, and grasped several arrows in his hand. His name was Wit."--_Addison._ In her essay on Heine, George Eliot writes: "Every one who has had the opportunity of making the comparison, will remember that the effect produced on him by some witticisms is closely akin to the effect produced on him by subtle reasoning which lays open a fallacy or absurdity; and there are persons whose delight in such reasoning always manifests itself in laughter. This affinity of wit with ratiocination is the more obvious in proportion as the species of wit is higher and deals less with words and with superficialities than with the essential qualities of things. Some of Dr. Johnson's most admirable witticisms consist in the suggestion of an analogy which immediately exposes the absurdity of an action or proposition; and it is only their ingenuity, condensation and instantaneousness which lift them from reasoning into wit." The opinion of George Eliot has been shared by others. Pitt declared that "all wit is true reasoning," and Rogers says that "wit is truth." A French writer has observed that "reason needs to be armed with the terrible epigram." And even solemn John Milton writes of Plato's dialogues, "There is scarce one of them, especially wherein some notable sophister lies sweating and turmoiling under the inevitable and merciless dilemmas of Socrates, but he that reads, were it Saturn himself, would be robbed of more than a smile."