[178] "Pin thy faith to no man's sleeve; hast thou not two eyes of thy own?"—Carlyle.
[179] Give examples of men who have been made to feel the displeasure of the world for their nonconformity.
[180] "Nihil tam incertum nec tam inæstimabile est quam animi multitudinis."—Livy, xxxi. 34. "Mobile mutatur semper cum principe vulgus." Claudianus, De IV. Consul. Honorii, 302.
[181] The other terror. The first, conformity, has just been treated.
[182] Consistency. Compare, on the other hand, the well-known saying, "Consistency, thou art a jewel."
[186] Pythagoras (fl. about 520 b.c.), a Greek philosopher. His society was scattered and persecuted by the fury of the populace.
[187] Socrates (470?-399 b.c.), the great Athenian philosopher, whose teachings are the subject of most of Plato's writings, was accused of corrupting the youth, and condemned to drink hemlock.
[188] Martin Luther (1483-1546) preached against certain abuses of the Roman Catholic Church and was excommunicated by the Pope. He became the leader of the Protestant Reformation.
[189] Copernicus (1473-1543) discovered the error of the old Ptolemaic system of astronomy and showed that the sun is the centre of our planetary system. Fearing the persecution of the church, he hesitated long to publish his discovery, and it was many years after his death before the world accepted his theory.
[190] Galileo (1564-1642), the famous Italian astronomer and physicist, discoverer of the satellites of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn, was thrown into prison by the Inquisition.
[192] Andes, the great mountain system of South America.
[193] Himmaleh, Himalaya, the great mountain system of Asia.
[194] Alexandrian stanza. The Alexandrian line consists of twelve syllables (iambic hexameter). Neither the acrostic nor the Alexandrine has the property assigned to it here. A palindrame reads the same forward as backward, as: "Madam, I'm Adam"; "Signa te signa; temere me tangis et angis"; or the inscription on the church of St. Sophia, Constantinople: ????? ????µata µ? µ??a? ????
[195] The reference is to sailing vessels, of course.
[197] Chatham, William Pitt, Earl of Chatham (1708-1778), this distinguished statesman and orator. He became very popular as a statesman and was known as "The Great Commoner."