2. A forwardness to dictate another's beliefs, from whence. The
assuming an authority of dictating to others, and a forwardness to
prescribe to their opinions, is a constant concomitant of this bias
and corruption of our judgments. For how almost can it be otherwise,
but that he should be ready to impose on another's belief, who has
already imposed on his own? Who can reasonably expect arguments and
conviction from him in dealing with others, whose understanding is not
accustomed to them in his dealing with himself? Who does violence to
his own faculties, tyrannizes over his own mind, and usurps the
prerogative that belongs to truth alone, which is to command assent by
only its own authority, i.e. by and in proportion to that evidence
which it carries with it.
3. Force of enthusiasm, in which reason is taken away. Upon this
occasion I shall take the liberty to consider a third ground of
assent, which with some men has the same authority, and is as
confidently relied on as either faith or reason; I mean enthusiasm:
which, laying by reason, would set up revelation without it. Whereby
in effect it takes away both reason and revelation, and substitutes in
the room of them the ungrounded fancies of a man's own brain, and
assumes them for a foundation both of opinion and conduct.
4. Reason and revelation.
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