Nations, like individuals, cannot become desperate gamblers with impunity. Punishment is sure to overtake them sooner or later.

He who has mingled in the fray of duty that the brave endure, must have made foes. If you have none, small is the work that you have done.

Every age has its peculiar folly: Some scheme, project, or fantasy into which it plunges, spurred on by the love of gain, the necessity of excitement, or the force of imitation.

Tell me, ye wingèd winds That round my pathway roar, Know ye not some spot Where mortals weep no more?

Some love to roam o'er the dark sea's foam, Where the shrill winds whistle free.

In reading The History of Nations, we find that, like individuals, they have their whims and their peculiarities, their seasons of excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do. We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first.

The study of the errors into which great minds have fallen in the pursuit of truth can never be uninstructive. . . No man is so wise but that he may learn some wisdom from his past errors, either of thought or action, and no society has made such advances as to be capable of no improvement from the retrospect of its past folly and credulity.