* * * * *
We know that man is in general superior to all other animals, and this
is also the case in his capacity for being trained. Mohammedans are
trained to pray with their faces turned towards Mecca, five times a
day; and they never fail to do it. Christians are trained to cross
themselves on certain occasions, to bow, and so on. Indeed, it may
be said that religion is the _chef d'oeuvre_ of the art of training,
because it trains people in the way they shall think: and, as is well
known, you cannot begin the process too early. There is no absurdity
so palpable but that it may be firmly planted in the human head if
you only begin to inculcate it before the age of five, by constantly
repeating it with an air of great solemnity. For as in the case of
animals, so in that of men, training is successful only when you begin
in early youth.
Noblemen and gentlemen are trained to hold nothing sacred but their
word of honor--to maintain a zealous, rigid, and unshaken belief in
the ridiculous code of chivalry; and if they are called upon to do so,
to seal their belief by dying for it, and seriously to regard a king
as a being of a higher order.
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