Deference

“ Deference further serves to distinguish the great. Now if deference was displayed by sitting in an arm-chair, we should show deference to everybody, and so no distinction would be made; but, being put to inconvenience, we distinguish very well. ”

“ But all this while we are forgetting to inquire how much is to be understood as included in that good order, that deference and subordination, which the possession of more mind and knowledge by the people might disturb or destroy. ”

“ We may attribute too little to them, it is true, and even great men are bound to pay some deference to the deliberate judgment of many; but it is usually--nay, invariably--a sign of weak understanding, to depend for the tone of our own thoughts upon those around. ”

“ That such a fallacy could be imposed upon any human understanding, or that an author could have advanced a position so remote from truth and reason, any other ways than as a declaimer, to shew to what extent he could stretch his imagination, and with what strength he could press his principle, would scarcely have been credible, had not this lady kindly shewn us how far weakness may be deluded, or indolence amused. ”

“ But confirmations from experience are preferable, because the deductions of reason are not comprehended by many, and because they who have confirmed themselves in the contrary opinion, turn them into matters of doubt by reasonings drawn from the fallacies of the senses. ”

“ For it is ridiculous to attempt to prove the truth of those perceptions, whose truth we can no otherwise prove than by other perceptions which there is just the same ground to suspect; or to attempt to prove the truth of our faculties, which can no otherwise be proved than by these very suspected faculties themselves.’ This is the substance of the argument that rests on the data of the sense or reason with which human nature is inspired. ”

“ Thou'lt find That from the senses first hath been create Concept of truth, nor can the senses be Rebutted. For criterion must be found Worthy of greater trust, which shall defeat Through own authority the false by true; What, then, than these our senses must there be Worthy a greater trust? Shall reason, sprung From some false sense, prevail to contradict Those senses, sprung as reason wholly is From out the senses?—For lest these be true, All reason also then is falsified. Or shall the ears have power to blame the eyes, Or yet the touch the ears? ”

“ But it is enough that such assertions should be either contradictory to the known laws of nature, or exceed the limits of our experience, that their fallacy or irrelevancy to our consideration should be demonstrated. They persuade, indeed, only those who desire to be persuaded. ”

“ If you reject absolutely any single sensation without stopping to discriminate with respect to that which awaits confirmation between matter of opinion and that which is already present, whether in sensation or in feelings or in any presentative perception of the mind, you will throw into confusion even the rest of your sensations by your groundless belief and so you will be rejecting the standard of truth altogether. ”

“ For every property, therefore, in facts, or in our mode of considering facts, which leads us to believe that they are habitually conjoined when they are not, or that they are not when in reality they are, there is a corresponding kind of Fallacy; and an enumeration of fallacies would consist in a specification of those properties in facts, and those peculiarities in our mode of considering them, which give rise to this erroneous opinion. ”

“ Sense-deceptions, faulty observation, distraction, exaggeration, illusion, fallacy, and error are not idle abstract fancies of the psychologist, but stern realities; and their existence emphasizes the need in the determination of truth and the maintenance of a sound rationality, of a calm, unprejudiced judgment, of an experienced and balanced intelligence, of a discerning sense for nice distinctions, of an appreciation of the circumstances under which it is peculiarly human to err. ”

“ There had seldom been a case in which he had not successfully employed a curious subterranean logic—an apparently wilful insistence upon what seemed at first glance the unvital and immaterial—as a preliminary to a swift volte-face by which he turned the evidence at a new and unexpected angle of inference, and drove home the doubt with a brilliant display of oratory which captivated and—for the moment—convinced. ”

“ Those who have asked it have, so far as I know, answered it either by denying that my observations give me any reason or by pointing to a part of my observations, which, as it seems to me, really do give none. Those who deny are, it seems to me, right in holding that the reason given by those who affirm is no reason. ”

“ Our goal is reached, so far as the demonstrable truth is concerned, whenever we have found a series of propositions relating to the constitution of the realm of experience, and such that, as soon as you try to deny these propositions, you implicitly reaffirm them by your very attempt at denial. ”

“ Negation itself, as we shall hereafter see, is known to us, but this it could not be were we to admit that the understanding knows nothing save inasmuch as it is being; in which case the indispensable condition of all cognition, the principle of contradiction, would deceive us. ”

“ The dead abstract notions of the intellect, the dialectical disputes of the reason, the purely subjective and one-sided apprehension of objects by a deluded fancy, and the absolute will, are the four sources of human error. ”

“ The one criterion, whether of good or of truth, is the feeling of the moment for the man who feels it; all question of causes of feelings is delusive. We can say with truth and certainty, I have the sensation of white or the sensation of sweet. ”

“ Deny every thing, even the principle of contradiction, and consciousness still subsists; but deny the principle of contradiction, and every proposition is destroyed, every combination becomes absurd: analysis, and the relation of the predicate with the subject, are unmeaning words. ”

“ Our whole natural thinking, as shall be distinctly proved in the body of this work, consists of a series of judgments, each of which involves a mental contradiction,—in other words, controverts a necessary truth or law of reason. ”

“ The vast question at last dwindles down to the inquiry: Can a few men, can one man, draw erroneous inferences and be honestly deceived by something supposed to have been seen? We presume that there can be no hesitation in giving an affirmative reply. ”

“ He should question the things he sees—not some things, but everything—stand, as it were, in the center of this whirling storm of contradiction which we know as life, and ask of it its source and its import. ”

“ And we seem unable to clear ourselves from the old dilemma, If you predicate what is different, you ascribe to the subject what it is not; and if you predicate what is not different, you say nothing at all. ”

“ But when we reason in words of general signification, and fall upon a general inference which is false, though it be commonly called error, it is indeed an absurdity or senseless speech. For error is but a deception in presuming that somewhat is past, or to come, of which, though it were not past, or not to come, yet there was no impossibility discoverable. ”

“ The reason is, I replied, that you attribute some profound meaning to my words; but I am only saying that deception, or being deceived or uninformed about the highest realities in the highest part of themselves, which is the soul, and in that part of them to have and to hold the lie, is what mankind least like;—that, I say, is what they utterly detest. ”

“ The same slovenliness of thought, and subjection of the reason to fears, wishes, and affections, which enable them to accept a theory involving a contradiction in terms, prevents them from perceiving the logical consequences of the theory. ”

“ You invariably lead me into the realms of speculation, and then throw me upon the defensive by asking me to prove my own theories, or with apparent sincerity, you advance an unreasonable hypothesis, and then, before I am aware of your purpose, force me to acquiesce because I can not find facts to confute you. ”

“ People had a difficulty, therefore, in conceiving that the most certain of all conclusions could rest on premisses which, instead of being certainly true, are certainly not true to the full extent asserted. This apparent paradox will be examined when we come to treat of Demonstration; where we shall be able to show that as much of the postulate is true, as is required to support as much as is true of the conclusion. ”

“ When several thoughts growing out of the same soil are connected by inference, they form what is called an argument. Arguments, as they are found in the state of Nature, are of two kinds; those that hang together, and those that only seem to hang together; these latter are called Fallacies. ”

“ Their understanding is so feeble in the discernment of falsities, and averting the Errors of reason, that it submitteth unto the fallacies of sense, and is unable to rectifie the Error of its sensations. ”

“ For this reason the things that we have said are not to be looked upon as proofs but rather as indications of the dullness of those who think differently, and who do not even recognise what is agreed on by everyone and is a matter of daily observation. ”

“ Who, in short, will be led to doubt any of the inferences he has drawn, or be induced to pause before he draws others, by consciousness of these many liabilities to error arising from want of knowledge, want of discipline, and want of duly-balanced sentiments? ”

“ It is astonishing, again, how constantly one hears rationalists arguing upon some deep topic, apparently without troubling about the deep assumptions involved, having lost their sense, as it were, of the real colour and character of a man's assumption. ”

“ In the justifying of the paradox, in the extricating of the real truth from the apparent falsehood of the statement, in the answer to the appeal made here to the imagination,—an appeal and challenge which, unless it be responded to, the proverb must remain unintelligible to us,—in all this there is a process of mental activity, oftentimes so rapidly exercised as scarcely to be perceptible, yet not the less carried on with a pleasurable excitement. ”

“ If then this person should pretend, or even design, to reason from his definition, and yet reason from his idea, a misapprehension will arise in the hearer, who supposes him to reason from his definition merely. ”

“ There may be confusions, there may be scenes concerning which we may be expected to be told much and are, in truth, told nothing at all, but these confusions and omissions do, in the end, only add to our conviction of the veracity of it. ”

“ To state, almost in one word, the fundamental error we have noticed in the text, we should say, that the whole perversion and falsity of the philosophy of man are owing to our commencing with a substance, "mind,"—and not with an act—the act or fact of consciousness. ”

“ We transfer the contempt based upon mere size, to the motives, which are the same in big men and little. The argument, if argument there be, is a fallacy; but it is equally efficacious for the feelings. ”

“ And it should be observed that each class of persons, in admitting this belief within the limited range of his own experience, though he doubt or deny it in every thing beyond, is, in fact, bearing unconscious testimony to its universal truth. ”

“ Thus what we have just said of human reason, which is extolled and decried by turns, and often without rule or measure, may show our lack of exactitude and how much we are accessary to our own errors. ”

“ As for the separation of truth from falsehood, and the resemblance which truth has with falsehood, and for the distinction between what is consistent and what is absurd, on both sides, a balance ought to be formed in which every thing may be weighed. ”

“ We can neither feel, perceive, nor observe, one thing, whilst we are feeling, perceiving, or observing, one of a contradictory nature; nor can we perform any two contradictory acts of comparison, inference, imagination, or volition, simultaneously. ”

“ Some of the most striking misunderstandings come from just this reason. It is not alone a matter of varying verbal values, leading to incompatible inferences; actually the whole of a man’s mind is involved. ”

“ A thousand instances in contradiction to an assertion it were not worth while to contradict, were it not so generally popular, so highly sanctioned, and so eminently pernicious to every thing that is manly and noble in literature, rush to our memory. ”

“ How are we to prove that sense deceives us, except by arguments drawn from sense? And if sense is not reliable in the first instance, [Pg 82] why rely upon it in the second, to prove that it is not reliable? If the senses do habitually deceive us, manifestly it can never be shown that they do. ”