Wilmington daily commercial., 1875-11-11
A LONG WAY AROUND.

It gives some people great deal OF trouble
TO get at a fact they would rather go round and |
round it than face it aud they suffer In the
process much unnecessary concern. This pecu- |
lisrty s doubtless as old as restless human ma |
ture itself, but now and again marked instance
occurs which makes it appear almost new.
Reading people are aware that there ID no great
er stickler for literary correctness anywhere than
Mr. Richard Grant White. He is chronic fault |
tiuder, and while we believe much Of his criti- |
cisn on the proper use OF words, &c., has been OF
benefit to modern writer's there can be no doubt,
either, but that good deal OF the spirit shown
by him has been peeyish and trihing. Still he
has always been in earnest and man who ls
earnest, and whose aims are high, must COM
msnd respect even when he is disposed to be
hypercritical. Mr.. White recently spoke-or
wrote-that two gillsmade pint, and upon be-
ing rebuked by the N. y. World for that asser-
ton replied in an agreeable article in the GaidIy
magazine wherein he formulated new theory OF
mental action designed to cover all such verbal
lapses. He says he knewyas well as the World
that four gills makes pint, AMI that he did not
write two gills by mistake. either-but
believed that he was writing four
glls From this text our inge-
nious author gives us his no.
tion Of Heterophemy,' which in plain terms
means the doing Of one thing while you think
you are doing another. Mr.. White devotes con-
siderable care to the elaboration OF this wild idea.
He is quite correct in saying that the condition
OF mind in which he made his blunder is the
daily alteration of the human race but he sure
ly oyerstates when he says that in that aberra-
tion there is mo confusion OF thought, no for
getting for an instant" Rather, the blunder is
the result of confusion OF thought, and mo-
mentary forgetiulness. This strange mis-
apprehension covers all the amusing
INSTANCES advanced by Mr.. White,
OF the lapses of authors. Such things
as giving the wrong author ities for quotations
mistaking the authorship of well-known
State papers as using the word +" food for
" shore and unlimited - for =" limited" do
not require SO weigbty an explanation Rs Mr.
White suggests, that in such cases there is an
interruption of the ordinarily simultaneous &C.
ton OF the two lobes OF the brain. The truth
can be found on much humber ground briefly,
in carelessness We can grant this carelessnesf
10 be unintentienal. and NAV even allow that il
il impossible at all times to guard against it, az
constant mistakes, big and little, in mental work
sufficiently show, but the fact remains that with
the proper amount Of care, either at frst hand
or by subsequent corrections, they could not
have occurred. II men in doing things hurritdy
or under such pressure that their minds are not
concentrated to the proper degree on their
work, or in the demoralizing routine In which,
while seeming to be engaged at one thing theii
minds are in reality far distant-if under any Of
these conditions, blunders drop from their "un-
conscious pens or lips they must not think tc
get shelter under heterophemistic plea. Thor.
ough care would have saved them, and il it was
not possible to exercise that care to the fullest
tuey must admit the error cheerfully. Mr.
Whites .heterophemistic theory IL clearly mo-
Eeeded