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For all the handwringing these days about how easily people are influenced by internet celebrities, pseudo-intellectuals, and political opiners – rest assured (or be disturbed) that t’ was ever thus … both the handwringing and the corresponding susceptibility to “influencers.” Mind you, handwringing can also be a rhetorical gesture.

“Amidst all this bustle ’tis not reason, which carries the prize, but eloquence; and no man needs ever despair of gaining proselytes to the most extravagant hypothesis, who has art enough to represent it in any favourable colours. The victory is not gained by men at arms, who manage the pike and the sword; but by the trumpeters, drummers, and musicians of the army.” Introduction, pp 41 & 42

• Hume, David. Ernest C. Mossner, Ed. A Treatise of Human Nature. Penguin Classics, 1985.