INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY
to this class; so have many men of science. In cases of this kind the individual conviction deserves the greatest respect, even if there seems no obvious justification for it. Obedience to the impulse is very unlikely to do much harm, and may well do great good. The practical difficulty is to distinguish such impulses from desires which produce similar manifestations. Many young people wish to be authors without having an impulse to write any particular book, or wish to be painters without having an impulse to create any particular picture. But a little experience will usually show the difference between a genuine and a spurious impulse; and there is less harm in indulging the spurious impulse for a time than in thwarting the impulse which is genuine. Nevertheless, the plain man almost always has a tendency to thwart the genu-
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