The Method Of Authority Will Always Govern

And What, Then, Is Belief? It Is The Demi-cadence Which Closes A Musical Phrase In The Symphony Of Our Intellectual Life.

Theoretically, I Grant You, There Is No Possibility Of Error In Necessary Reasoning. But To Speak Thus "theoretically," Is To Uselanguage In A Pickwickian Sense. In Practice, And In Fact, Mathematics Is Not Exempt From That Liability To Error That Affects Everything That Man Does.

It Is The Man Of Science, Eager To Have His Every Opinion Regenerated, His Every Idea Rationalized, By Drinking At The Fountain Of Fact, And Devoting All The Energies Of His Life To The Cult Of Truth, Not As He Understands It, But As He Does Not Yet Understand It, That Ought Properly To Be Called A Philosopher.

It Has Often Been Argued That Absolute Scepticism Is Self-contradictory; But This Is A Mistake: And Even If It Were Not So, It Would Be No Argument Against The Absolute Sceptic, Inasmuch As He Does Not Admit That No Contradictory Propositions Are True. Indeed, It Would Be Impossible To Move Such A Man, For His Scepticism Consists In Considering Every Argument And Never Deciding Upon Its Validity; He Would, Therefore, Act In This Way In Reference To The Arguments Brought Against Him.

The A Priori Method Is Distinguished For Its Comfortable Conclusions. It Is The Nature Of The Process To Adopt Whatever Belief Weare Inclined To, And There Are Certain Flatteries To The Vanity Of Man Which We All Believe By Nature, Until We Are Awakened From Our Pleasing Dream By Rough Facts.