In Which Dickens Expounds Generally Upon the Writing Practices of Philosophers

Having had to read through more than one work by a philosopher in the course of my studies, I was delighted to come across this quote from Oliver Twist dealing with the circumloquatious nature that characterizes much of the writing to be found under that subject. Another amusing aspect of this quote is that it is employed to illustrate to the reader the manner in which a couple young pick-pockets exit the scene of a crime and return to their base. As the primary feature of such a retreat must be to evade detection, the parallel is quite enjoyable to those, as mentioned above, forced to read through such rabbit-trails found within the writings of certain venerable philosophers:

If I wanted any further proof of the strictly philosophical nature of the conduct of these young gentlemen in their very delicate predicament, I should at once find it in the fact (also recorded in the foregoing part of this narrative), of their quitting the pursuit, when the general attention was fixed upon Oliver; and making immediately for their home by the shortest possible cut. Although I do not mean to assert that it is usually the practice of renowned and learned sages, to shorten the road to any great conclusion (their course indeed being rather to lengthen the distance, by various circumlocutions and discursive staggerings, like unto those in which drunken men under the pressure of a too mighty flow of ideas, are prone to indulge); still, I do mean to say, and do say distinctly, that it is the invariable practice of many mighty philosophers, in carrying out theories, to evince great wisdom and foresight in providing against every possible contingency which can be supposed at all likely to affect themselves. Thus, to do a great right, you may do a little wrong; and you may take any means which the end to be attained will justify; the amount of the right, or the amount of the wrong, or indeed the distinction between the two, being left entirely to the philosopher concerned, to be settled and determined by his clear, comprehensive, and impartial view of his own partial case.