Excerpt from The American People: A Study in National Psychology the Harvesting of a Nation The Preacher said, "There is no new thing under the sun," and one who had imbibed much of his wisdom warned that "the master of superstition is the people and in all superstition wise men follow fools: and arguments are fitted to practice in a reversed order." He who journeys in an unknown or little known country must expect that the accounts he brings back of strange peoples and customs will be doubted, for wise men have no more wisdom than fools in their superstition, and against superstition no argument will contend. I was aware when I essayed to explain the psychology of the American People that some of my deductions would be attacked, for my research convinced me that there was much superstition and fable to be overthrown, and some truth to be revealed. It was territory that had not been explored. It was to be expected that I should run counter to popular belief, and that it should appear as if I had sought to be iconoclastic merely for intellectual delight. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.