17. IV. Authority.
IV. The fourth and last wrong measure of probability I shall take notice of, and which keeps in
ignorance or error more people than all the other together, is that which I have mentioned in the foregoing
chapter: I mean the giving up our assent to the common received opinions, either of our friends or party,
neighbourhood or country. How many men have no other ground for their tenets, than the supposed honesty, or
learning, or number of those of the same profession? As if honest or bookish men could not err; or truth were to
be established by the vote of the multitude: yet this with most men serves the turn. The tenet has had the
attestation of reverend antiquity; it comes to me with the passport of former ages, and therefore I am secure in the
reception I give it: other men have been and are of the same opinion, (for that is all is said,) and therefore it is
reasonable for me to embrace it. A man may more justifiably throw up cross and pile for his opinions, than take
them up by such measures. All men are liable to error, and most men are in many points, by passion or interest,
under temptation to it. If we could but see the secret motives that influenced the men of name and learning in the
world, and the leaders of parties, we should not always find that it was the embracing of truth for its own sake,
that made them espouse the doctrines they owned and maintained. This at least is certain, there is not an opinion
so absurd, which a man may not receive upon this ground. There is no error to be named, which has not had its
professors: and a man shall never want crooked paths to walk in, if he thinks that he is in the right way, wherever
he has the footsteps of others to follow.
