CHAP. XX. BOOK IV. there are millions of truths that a man is not, or may not think himself concerned to know; as whether our king Richard the Third was crooked or no; or whether Roger Bacon was a mathematician or a magician. In these and such like cases, where the assent one way or other is of no importance to the interest of any one; no action, no concernment of his following or depending thereon, there it is not strange that the mind. should give itself up to the common opinion, or render itself to the first comer. These and the like opinions are of so little weight and moment, that, like motes in the sun, their tendencies are very rarely taken notice of. They are there, as it were, by chance, and the mind lets them float at liberty. But where the mind judges that the proposition has concernment in it where the assent or not assenting is thought to draw consequences of moment after it, and good and evil to depend on choosing or refusing the right side, and the mind sets itself seriously to inquire and examine the probability: there I think it is not in our choice to take which side we please, if manifest odds appear on either. The greater probability, I think, in that case will determine the assent: and a man can no more avoid assenting, or taking it to be true, where he perceives the greater probability, than he can avoid knowing it to be true, where he perceives the agreement or disagreement of any two ideas. IV. Au thority. If this be so, the foundation of error will lie in wrong measures of probability1; as the foundation of vice in wrong measures of good. 17. 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 1 But Locke guards against Bacon's sanguine anticipation of the levelling consequences of the adoption of right methods of induction and 'measures of probability,' and the Baconian ideal of the knowledge of nature that is thus attainable by man. 'Nostra vero inveniendi scientias,' says Bacon,' ea est ratio, ut non multum ingeniorum acumini et robori relinquatur; sed quae ingenia et in tellectus fere exaequet.' (Nov. Org. I. 61.) 'Nostra via inveniendi scientias exaequat fere ingenia, et non multum excellentiae eorum relinquit: cum omnia per certissimas regulas et demonstrationes transigat.' (122.) Locke, on the contrary, enlarges upon the infinite subtlety of the universe which we try to interpret, and the inevitable differences of faculty on the part of its human interpreters. CHAP. XX. our assent to the common received opinions1, either of our BOOK IV. 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 follow2. 1 'Quant aux opinions reçues, elles ont pour elles quelque chose d'approchant à ce qui donne ce qu'on appelle présomption chez les jurisconsultes; et quoiqu'on ne soit point obligé de les suivre toujours sans preuves, on n'est pas autorisé non plus à les détruire dans l'esprit d'autrui sans avoir des preuves contraires. C'est qu'il n'est point permis de rien changer sans raison. On a fort disputé sur l'argument tiré du grand nombre des approbateurs d'un sentiment, depuis que feu M. Nicole publia son livre sur l'Église; mais tout ce qu'on peut tirer de cet argument, lorsqu'il s'agit d'approuver une raison, et non pas attester un fait, ne peut être reduit 2 Authority as such cannot be the 141 CHAP. XX. Not so in Errors as is BOOK IV. 18. But, notwithstanding the great noise is made in the world about errors and opinions, I must do mankind that right as to say, There are not so many men in errors and wrong many men opinions as is commonly supposed. Not that I think they embrace the truth; but indeed, because concerning those commonly doctrines they keep such a stir about, they have no thought, supposed. no opinion at all. For if any one should a little catechise the greatest part of the partizans of most of the sects in the world, he would not find, concerning those matters they are so zealous for, that they have any opinions of their own: much less would he have reason to think that they took them upon the examination of arguments and appearance of probability. They are resolved to stick to a party that education or interest has engaged them in; and there, like the common soldiers of an army, show their courage and warmth as their leaders direct, without ever examining, or so much as knowing, the cause they contend for. If a man's life shows that he has no serious regard for religion; for what reason should we think that he beats his head about the opinions of his church, and troubles himself to examine the grounds of this or that doctrine? It is enough for him to obey his leaders, to have his hand and his tongue ready for the support of the common cause, and thereby approve himself to those who can give him credit, preferment, or protection in that society1. Thus men become professors menting on this of Locke, ' does not after all redound much to their credit; for people are to be excused more for following erroneous opinions sincerely than selfishly. Perhaps, however, there is among men more sincerity than you seem to allow, and that without understanding fully the cause which they support, men submit them. selves with an implicit trust, often blindly, but still in good faith, to the judgment of those whose authority they have once recognised.' Moreover, the elements of truth usually mixed with errors that have long and widely prevailed, must not be forgotten in explaining and excusing apparent surrender to error. CHAP. XX. of, and combatants for, those opinions they were never BOOK IV. convinced of nor proselytes to; no, nor ever had so much as floating in their heads: and though one cannot say there are fewer improbable or erroneous opinions in the world than there are, yet this is certain; there are fewer that actually assent to them, and mistake them for truths, than is imagined. BOOK IV. - CHAP. XXI. Science may be divided : CHAPTER XXI. OF THE DIVISION OF THE SCIENCES1. 1. ALL that can fall within the compass of human understanding 2, being either, First, the nature of things, as they are in themselves3, their relations, and their manner of operation or, Secondly, that which man himself ought to do, as a rational and voluntary agent, for the attainment of into three any end, especially happiness: or, Thirdly, the ways and means whereby the knowledge of both the one and the other of these is attained and communicated; I think science may be divided properly into these three sorts :— sorts. 6 1 science,' here and throughout this chapter, is used in a wider meaning than in preceding parts of the Essay, where it is confined to what is either intuitively, demonstratively, or sensuously certain, i. e. to knowledge in the strict Lockian meaning of that term. Accordingly, concrete sciences of particular substances, bodies or spirits, are held by Locke to transcend human understanding, which must be satisfied with nominal, in defect of real, essences, and is unable to interpret the secondary qualities and passive powers of bodies in the light of their primary or essential qualities. Cf. Bk. II. ch. viii; III. ch. vi; IV. ch. iii. § 26. Yet here probable judgments about things, about human actions, and about the signs of both, are included in 'science' or 'knowledge'-another example of Locke's vacillating use of words. 2 What is here proposed is, accordingly, a division' of 'all that can fall within the compass of human understanding.' It ought to be a corollary from the outcome of the Essay regarding the origin, and especially the 4 ✦ their relations,' e. g. of sameness or difference, extent and duration, causality, &c. 'their manner of operation,' i. e. the 'modes,' simple or mixed, which may be referred to them, and which have been abstracted from them. 6 The free actions of human agents, viewed in relation to Locke's ideal of happiness. Cf. Bk. II. chh. xxi, xxvii. The methods for finding what is, and what we ought to be. |