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. The greater probability, I think, in that case will determine
the assent: and a man can no more avoid assenting, or taking it to be
true, where he perceives the greater probability, than he can avoid
knowing it to be true, where he perceives the agreement or disagreement
of any two ideas.

If this be so, the foundation of error will lie in wrong measures of
probability; as the foundation of vice in wrong measures of good.

17. IV. Authority

The fourth and last wrong measure of probability I shall take notice of,
and which keeps in ignorance or error more people than all the other
together, is that which I have mentioned in the foregoing chapter: I
mean the giving up our assent to the common received opinions, either
of our friends or party, neighbourhood or country. How many men have no
other ground for their tenets, than the supposed honesty, or learning,
or number of those of the same profession? As if honest or bookish
men could not err; or truth were to be established by the vote of the
multitude: yet this with most men serves the turn. The tenet has had the
attestation of reverend antiquity; it comes to me with the passport of
former ages, and therefore I am secure in the reception I give it: other
men have been and are of the same opinion, (for that is all is said,)
and therefore it is reasonable for me to embrace it. A man may more
justifiably throw up cross and pile for his opinions, than take them up
by such measures. All men are liable to error, and most men are in many
points, by passion or interest, under temptation to it. If we could but
see the secret motives that influenced the men of name and learning in
the world, and the leaders of parties, we should not always find that it
was the embracing of truth for its own sake, that made them espouse the
doctrines they owned an