so quick to perceive the meaning of what is said, or 
so eager to listen to what may be said, but they 
judge entirely by what is said: they have no 
standard of atavistic experience to tell them whether 
it is right or wrong.  The most ignorant peasant in 
Europe, who firmly believes in ghosts and vampires 
and werewolves, who cannot read or write, has 
never travelled beyond the radius of twenty miles 
from his hamlet, and knows nothing of his country’s 
affairs, much less of the world’s, could never be so 
insensible to the facts of human nature as Henry 
Ford.  You could argue with him “til all was blue,” 
but you would never even begin to persuade him.  
He would know it was all nonsense, just in the same 
way as you cannot fool a dog about a tramp.  It is 
true that this instinct is sometimes wrong after all in 
certain minor matters, because now and then 
conditions do change.  But in all fundamental points 
humanity has not altered since the cave man.  A 
friend of mine was arguing the other day about this 
very matter.  “Nowadays,” said his opponent, “if 
you want a girl, you cannot twist your knuckles in 
her hair, Club her, and drag her bleeding to your 
cave.”  “No,” said my friend, “things have changed 
a great deal since the eighth of July!”  
It is just this capacity for seeing everything sub 
specie aeternatitis which distinguishes the great 
artist or the great seer, even to a certain extent the 
great statesman, from plausible imitations.  We do 
not value Shakespeare’s histories for their political 
views; in fact, the portrait of Joan of Arc is a stain 
upon the character of the poet which no ages can 
efface.  (But the English always blackguard gallant