CHAPTER IV. 187 CHAP. IV.-Of Authority, of the Abuse of it, and of its real and proper Use and Service. THE influence which other persons haveupon our opinions, is usually called authority. The power of it is so great and widely extensive, that there is scarcely any person in the world entirely free from the impression of it, even after their utmost watchfulness and care to avoid it. Our parents and tutors, yea our very nurses determine a multitude of our sentiments; our friends, our neighbours, the custom of the country where we dwell, and the established opinions of mankind, form our be- lief ; the great, the pious, the learned, and the ancient, the king, the priest, and the philosopher, are characters of mighty efficacy to persuade us to receive what they dictate. These may be ranked under different heads of prejudice, but they are all of a kindred nature, andmay be reduced to this one springor head of authority. , I have treated ofthese particularly in Logic, Part II. Chap. III. Sec. 4th. Yet a few other remarks occurring among my papers, I thought it not improper to let them find a place here. Cicero was well acquainted with the unhappy influences of authority, and complains of it in the first book De natura Deo- rum. " In disputes and controversies (says he) it is not so much the author, or patron of any opinion, as the weight and force of argument, which should influence the mind. The authority of those who teach, is a frequent hindrance to those who learn, be- cause they utterly neglect to exercise their own judgment, taking for granted whatsoever others whom they reverence have judged for them. I can by no means approve, what we learn from the Pythagoreans, that if any thing asserted in disputation was ques- tioned they were wont to answer, Ipse dixit, that is, He himself said so, meaning Pythagoras. So far did prejudice prevail, that authority without reason was sufficient to determine disputes and to establish truth." All human authority, though it be ever so ancient, though it hath had universal sovereignty, and swayed all the learned and the vulgar world for some thousands of years, yet has no certain and undoubted claim to truth :' nor is it any violation of good manners, to enter a caveat with due decency against its pretended dominion. What is there among all the sciences that has been longer established and more universally received ever since the days of Aristotle, and perhaps for ages before lie lived, than this, that " all heavy bodies whatsoever tend towards the centre of the earth ?" But Sir Isaac Newton has found that those bulky and weighty bodies, the earth and all the planets tend toward the centre of the sun, whereby, the authority of near three thousand years or more is not only called in question, but actuallyrefuted and renounced. Again, Was ever any thing more universally agreed among
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=