The Romans did not spread their arms over so many nations from a desire of empire, but from a necessity of self-defense; and yet, by the time they had finished defending themselves, they had conquered the world.
The human mind is not, as philosophers would have you think, a debater, but a dreamer. The function of the intellect is not to distinguish truth from falsehood, but to make whichever it chooses more vivid and persuasive than it could otherwise be.
We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.
It is not reason that gives us our moral principles; it is habit, custom, the slow deposit of human experience. Reason comes after, to justify or to criticize what instinct and tradition have already established.
Andrew was a walking category error, perceiving no difference between business and pleasure, between what was good for the country and what was excellent for him, conducting a campaign of international larceny masquerading as public service.
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