To avoid one party lest he should run on Scylla, he excited and provoked the jealousy and neglect of the other, who might have wrecked him on Charybdis. These were well-known dangers; but, as all navigable seas have their shoals often invisible; in order to avoid the effects of these jealousies, he selected from each party, men of experience to give him the soundings, and thus prevent him from wrecking his barque on rocks and quicksands; for, without such information, there could be little chance of escape.
In so doing, be lost his popularity with the many, though these were evils he might perhaps have conquered (but still speaking figuratively); his crew (his great inward aid) had differed too seriously among themselves, and were under the influence of conflicting feelings.
His whole mind was bent on the search after those truths that alone can determine fixed principles, and which not long after became to him an unerring guide. They were for him what the needle is to the mariner.
The observation alluded to is as follows:
"All my experience, from my first entrance into life to the present hour, is in favour of the warning maxim, that the man who opposes in toto the political or religious zealots of his age, is safer from their obloquy than he who differs from them but in one or two points only in degree."
is a truth too important to pass lightly over, as in this consisted much of that feeling which prevented his being popular, (for unless an individual goes the whole length of the party who may choose to adopt him, he is discarded, and it is well for him if he is not persecuted and held up to public ridicule).
Zealots are usually superficial, but in herds they are found to support each other, and by their numbers assume an imposing air. — One weak man cannot stand, but three may. — By this mode of congregating, they are more easily managed by their leaders, whose impulses they obey, and to whom they become willing slaves. Men who sacrifice the many to the few, have been held out by almost every writer, where moral and political subjects have been introduced, as warnings to those liable to fall into their snares, but which have seemingly been put forth to little purpose. The necessity, therefore, for a continuation of instruction on such important moral truths, is still required; for, in the contending currents, so much mischief is often produced, that to divert these conflicting opinions, and to try to bring them into unity, Coleridge thought it a duty to employ his strength of intellect; he hoped to preserve a principle which he deemed so useful to mankind.