Page:Max Havelaar; or, the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (IA dli.granth.77827).pdf/324

 a person is only exercised by a member of the Representative Chambers, how great then will be the inclination to judge wrongly if such influence is accompanied by the confidence of the King, who placed this functionary at the head of the ministry of the colonies? It is a peculiar phenomenon (perhaps owing its origin to a sort of dulness, which shuns the trouble of judging for ourselves), how easily one gives his confidence to persons who know how to give themselves the appearance of more knowledge, when this knowledge has been drawn from a foreign source. The reason perhaps is, that self-love is less hurt by the acknowledgment of such an ascendency, than would be the case if one could have recourse to the same expedients when anything like emulation should arise. It is easy for the representative of the people to give up his opinion, as soon as it is combated by a person who may be deemed to pass a more accurate judgment than he, and this accuracy need not be ascribed to personal superiority, confession of which would be more difficult, but only to the particular circumstances wherein such an opponent has been. And not to speak of those who have filled high offices in India, it is indeed strange how often value is ascribed to the opinion of persons who really possess nothing to justify the credit given them, than the remembrance of a residence of so many years in those regions, and this is so much the more strange, because they, who attach importance to such a source of information, would