Men in all ages have suffered from
jealousy,--like Othello; have committed murders,--like Macbeth; have
yielded to the sway of morbid minds,--like Hamlet; have stolen, lied,
and debauched,--like Falstaff;--there are Oliver Twists, Bill
Sykeses, and Nancies; Micawbers, Pickwicks, and Pecksniffs in every
great city.
There is nothing in the mind of man that has not preexisted in
nature. Can we imagine a person, who never saw or heard of an
elephant, drawing a picture of such a two-tailed creature? It was
thought at one time that man had made the flying-dragon out of his
own imagination; but we now know that the image of the _pterodactyl_
had simply descended from generation to generation. Sindbad's great
bird, the _roc_, was considered a flight of the Oriental fancy, until
science revealed the bones of the _dinornis_. All the winged beasts
breathing fire are simply a recollection of the comet.
In fact, even with the patterns of nature before it, the
[1. Bancroft, "Native Races," note, vol. iii, p. 17.]
{p. 120}
human mind has not greatly exaggerated them: it has never drawn a
bird larger than the _dinornis_ or a beast greater than the mammoth.
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