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 Pensees sur les Cometes, 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