If it were not so, ignorance, error, or infidelity, could
not in any case be a fault. Thus, in some cases we can prevent or
suspend our assent: but can a man versed in modern or ancient
history doubt whether there is such a place as Rome, or whether
there was such a man as Julius Caesar? Indeed, 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.
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