12. III. Predominant passions.
III. Probabilities which cross men's appetites and prevailing passions run the same fate.
Let ever so much probability hang on one side of a covetous man's reasoning, and money on the other; it is easy to
foresee which will outweigh. Earthly minds, like mud walls, resist the strongest batteries: and though, perhaps,
sometimes the force of a clear argument may make some impression, yet they nevertheless stand firm, and keep
out the enemy, truth, that would captivate or disturb them. Tell a man passionately in love that he is jilted; bring a
score of witnesses of the falsehood of his mistress, it is ten to one but three kind words of hers shall invalidate all
their testimonies. Quod volumus, facile credimus; what suits our wishes, is forwardly believed, is, I suppose, what
every one hath more than once experimented: and though men cannot always openly gainsay or resist the force of
manifest probabilities that make against them, yet yield they not to the argument. Not but that it is the nature of
the understanding constantly to close with the more probable side; but yet a man hath a power to suspend and
restrain its inquiries, and not permit a full and satisfactory examination, as far as the matter in question is capable,
and will bear it to be made. Until that be done, there will be always these two ways left of evading the most
apparent probabilities:
