Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/269

ness, that I never yet knew great ministers without; I mean, their being deaf to all advice: for, if a person of the best understanding offers his opinion in a point where he is not master of all the circumstances, (which perhaps are not to be told) tis a hundred to one but he runs into an absurdity: whence it is, that ministers falsely conclude themselves to be equally wiser than others in general things, where the common reason of mankind ought to be the judge, and is probably less biassed than theirs. I have known a great man of excellent parts, blindly pursue a point of no importance, against the advice of every friend he had, till it ended in his ruin. I have seen great abilities rendered utterly useless, by unaccountable and unnecessary delay, and by difficulty of access, by which a thousand opportunities are suffered to escape. I have observed the strongest shoulders sink under too great a load of business, for want of dividing a due proportion among others. These, and more that might be named, are very obvious failings, which every rational man may be allowed to discern, as well as lament; and wherein the wisest minister may receive advice from others, of inferiour understanding. But in those actions where we are not thoroughly informed of all the motives and circumstances, it is hardly possible that our judgment should not be mistaken. I have often been one of the company, where we have all blamed a measure taken, which has afterward proved the only one that could possibly have succeeded. Nay, I have known those very men, who have formerly been in the secret of affairs, when a new set of people hath come in, offering their refinements and conjectures in a very plausible manner upon what was passing, and widely err in all they advanced.