Thus it happens, when
wrong opinions are entertained, that they mutually destroy each
other and leave the mind open to truth."
"I did not expect," answered, the Princess, "to hear that imputed
to falsehood which is the consequence only of frailty. To the
mind, as to the eye, it is difficult to compare with exactness
objects vast in their extent and various in their parts. When we
see or conceive the whole at once, we readily note the
discriminations and decide the preference, but of two systems, of
which neither can be surveyed by any human being in its full
compass of magnitude and multiplicity of complication, where is the
wonder that, judging of the whole by parts, I am alternately
affected by one and the other as either presses on my memory or
fancy? We differ from ourselves just as we differ from each other
when we see only part of the question, as in the multifarious
relations of politics and morality, but when we perceive the whole
at once, as in numerical computations, all agree in one judgment,
and none ever varies in his opinion."
"Let us not add," said the Prince, "to the other evils of life the
bitterness of controversy, nor endeavour to vie with each other in
subtilties of argument.
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