🚀 go-pugleaf

due mean? Let him appear and
prove it. There is no principle, however natural to us from infancy, which
may not be made to pass for a false impression either of education or of
sense.

"Because," say some, "you have believed from childhood that a box was empty
when you saw nothing in it, you have believed in the possibility of a
vacuum. This is an illusion of your senses, strengthened by custom, which
science must correct." "Because," say others, "you have been taught at
school that there is no vacuum, you have perverted your common sense which
clearly comprehended it, and you must correct this by returning to your
first state." Which has deceived you, your senses or your education?

We have another source of error in diseases. They spoil the judgement and
the senses; and if the more serious produce a sensible change, I do not
doubt that slighter ills produce a proportionate impression.

Our own interest is again a marvellous instrument for nicely putting out our
eyes. The justest man in the world is not allowed to be judge in his own
cause; I know some who, in order not to fall into this self-love, have been
perfectly unjust out of opposition. The sure way of losing a just cause has
been to get it recommended to these men by their near relatives.

Justice and truth are two such subtle points that our tools are too blunt to
touch them accurately. If they reach the point, they either crush it, or
lean all round, more on the false than on the true.

Man is so happily formed that he has no... good of the true, and several
excellent of the false. Let us now see how much... But the most powerful
cause of error is the war existing between the senses and reason.

83. We must thus begin the chapter on