“ I remember it was with extreme difficulty that I could bring my master to understand the meaning of the word opinion, or how a point could be disputable; because reason taught us to affirm or deny only where we are certain; and beyond our knowledge we cannot do either. ”
Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels (1726). copy citation
| Author | Jonathan Swift |
|---|---|
| Source | Gulliver's Travels |
| Topic | reason knowledge opinion |
| Date | 1726 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/829/829-h/829-h.htm |
Context
“Neither is reason among them a point problematical, as with us, where men can argue with plausibility on both sides of the question, but strikes you with immediate conviction; as it must needs do, where it is not mingled, obscured, or discoloured, by passion and interest. I remember it was with extreme difficulty that I could bring my master to understand the meaning of the word opinion, or how a point could be disputable; because reason taught us to affirm or deny only where we are certain; and beyond our knowledge we cannot do either. So that controversies, wranglings, disputes, and positiveness, in false or dubious propositions, are evils unknown among the Houyhnhnms. In the like manner, when I used to explain to him our several systems of natural philosophy, he would laugh, «that a creature pretending to reason, should value itself upon the knowledge of other people's conjectures, and in things where that knowledge, if it were certain, could be of no use.»”
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Meaning and analysis
