Let us not, in the pride of our superior knowledge, turn with contempt from the follies of our predecessors. The study of the errors into which great minds have fallen in the pursuit of truth can never be uninstructive. As the man looks back to the days of his childhood and his youth, and recalls to his mind the strange notions and false opinions that swayed his actions at the time, that he may wonder at them; so should society, for its edification, look back to the opinions which governed ages that fled.

In the autumn of 1844 he moved to Scotland and became editor of the Glasgow Argus resigning in 1847. During the American Civil War he returned there as a correspondent for the Times in which capacity he discovered and disclosed the Fenian conspiracy. In the autumn of 1839 he spent a month's holiday in Scotland witnessing the Eglintoun Tournament which he described in the Chronicle and making acquaintances in Edinburgh.

Charles Mackay (26 March 1812 – 24 December 1889) was a Scottish poet journalist author anthologist novelist and songwriter remembered mainly for his book Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.