This is the _argumentum ad verecundiam_. It consists in making an
appeal to authority rather than reason, and in using such an authority
as may suit the degree of knowledge possessed by your opponent.
Every man prefers belief to the exercise of judgment, says Seneca; and
it is therefore an easy matter if you have an authority on your side
which your opponent respects. The more limited his capacity and
knowledge, the greater is the number of the authorities who weigh with
him. But if his capacity and knowledge are of a high order, there
are very few; indeed, hardly any at all. He may, perhaps, admit the
authority of professional men versed in a science or an art or a
handicraft of which he knows little or nothing; but even so he will
regard it with suspicion. Contrarily, ordinary folk have a deep
respect for professional men of every kind. They are unaware that
a man who makes a profession of a thing loves it not for the thing
itself, but for the money he makes by it; or that it is rare for a man
who teaches to know his subject thoroughly; for if he studies it as he
ought, he has in most cases no time left in which to teach it.
But there are very many authorities who find respect with the mob, and
if you have none that is quite suitable, you can take one that appears
to be so; you may quote what some said in another sense or in other
circumstances. Authorities which your opponent fails to understand are
those of which he generally thinks the most. The unlearned entertain a
peculiar respect for a Greek or a Latin flourish. You may also, should
it be necessary, not only twist your authorities, but actually falsify
them, or quote something which you have invented entirely yourself. As
a rule, your opponent has no books at hand, and could not use them if
he had. The finest illustration of this is furnished by the French
_curé_, who, to avoid being compelled, like other citizens, to pave
the street in front of his house, quoted a saying which he described
as biblical: _paveant illi, ego non pavebo_. That was quite enough for
the municipal officers. A universal prejudice may also be used as an
authority; for most people think with Aristotle that that may be said
to exist which many believe. There is no opinion, however absurd,
which men will not readily embrace as soon as they can be brought to
the conviction that it is generally adopted. Example affects their
thought just as it affects their action. They are like sheep following
the bell-wether just as he leads them. They would sooner die than
think. It is very curious that the universality of an opinion should
have so much weight with people, as their own experience might tell
them that its acceptance is an entirely thoughtless and merely
imitative process. But it tells them nothing of the kind, because they
possess no self-knowledge whatever. It is only the elect Who Say with
Plato: [Greek: tois pollois polla dokei] which means that the public
has a good many bees in its bonnet, and that it would be a long
business to get at them.
But to speak seriously, the universality of an opinion is no proof,
nay, it is not even a probability, that the opinion is right. Those
who maintain that it is so must assume (1) that length of time
deprives a universal opinion of its demonstrative force, as otherwise
all the old errors which were once universally held to be true would
have to be recalled; for instance, the Ptolemaic system would have
to be restored, or Catholicism re-established in all Protestant
countries. They must assume (2) that distance of space has the same
effect; otherwise the respective universality of opinion among the
adherents of Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam will put them in a
difficulty.
When we come to look into the matter, so-called universal opinion is
the opinion of two or three persons; and we should be persuaded of
this if we could see the way in which it really arises.
We should find that it is two or three persons who, in the first
instance, accepted it, or advanced and maintained it; and of whom
people were so good as to believe that they had thoroughly tested it.
Then a few other persons, persuaded beforehand that the first were men
of the requisite capacity, also accepted the opinion. These, again,
were trusted by many others, whose laziness suggested to them that it
was better to believe at once, than to go through the troublesome task
of testing the matter for themselves. Thus the number of these lazy
and credulous adherents grew from day to day; for the opinion had no
sooner obtained a fair measure of support than its further supporters
attributed this to the fact that the opinion could only have obtained
it by the cogency of its arguments. The remainder were then compelled
to grant what was universally granted, so as not to pass for unruly
persons who resisted opinions which every one accepted, or pert
fellows who thought themselves cleverer than any one else.
When opinion reaches this stage, adhesion becomes a duty; and
henceforward the few who are capable of forming a judgment hold their
peace. Those who venture to speak are such as are entirely incapable
of forming any opinions or any judgment of their own, being merely the
echo of others' opinions; and, nevertheless, they defend them with all
the greater zeal and intolerance. For what they hate in people who
think differently is not so much the different opinions which they
profess, as the presumption of wanting to form their own judgment; a
presumption of which they themselves are never guilty, as they are
very well aware. In short, there are very few who can think, but
every man wants to have an opinion; and what remains but to take it
ready-made from others, instead of forming opinions for himself?
Since this is what happens, where is the value of the opinion even of
a hundred millions? It is no more established than an historical
fact reported by a hundred chroniclers who can be proved to have
plagiarised it from one another; the opinion in the end being
traceable to a single individual.[1] It is all what I say, what you
say, and, finally, what he says; and the whole of it is nothing but a
series of assertions:
[Footnote 1: See Bayle's _Pensées sur les Comètes_, i., p. 10.]
_Dico ego, tu dicis, sed denique dixit et ille;
Dictaque post toties, nil nisi dicta vides_.
Nevertheless, in a dispute with ordinary people, we may employ
universal opinion as an authority. For it will generally be found that
when two of them are fighting, that is the weapon which both of them
choose as a means of attack. If a man of the better sort has to deal
with them, it is most advisable for him to condescend to the use
of this weapon too, and to select such authorities as will make an
impression on his opponent's weak side. For, _ex hypoihesi_, he is as
insensible to all rational argument as a horny-hided Siegfried, dipped
in the flood of incapacity, and unable to think or judge. Before
a tribunal the dispute is one between authorities alone,--such
authoritative statements, I mean, as are laid down by legal experts;
and here the exercise of judgment consists in discovering what law or
authority applies to the case in question. There is, however, plenty
of room for Dialectic; for should the case in question and the law not
really fit each other, they can, if necessary, be twisted until they
appear to do so, or _vice versa_.