these transformations, but it is not as with the Fairies, by a mere act of this magic power, but by obscuring and suppressing in one’s mind the representations of good or bad qualities which are naturally attached to certain objects, and by contemplating only such representations as conform to our taste or our prejudices; or [435] again, because one attaches to the objects, by dint of thinking of them, certain qualities which are connected with them only accidentally or through our habitual contemplation of them.  For example, all my life long I detest a certain kind of good food, because in my childhood I found in it something distasteful, which made a strong impression upon me.  On the other hand, a certain natural defect will be pleasing to me, because it will revive within me to some extent the thought of a person I used to esteem or love.  A young man will have been delighted by the applause which has been showered upon him after some successful public action; the impression of this great pleasure will have made him remarkably sensitive to reputation; he will think day and night of nothing save what nourishes this passion, and that will cause him to scorn death itself in order to attain his end.  For although he may know very well that he will not feel what is said of him after his death, the representation he makes of it for himself beforehand creates a strong impression on his mind.  And there are always motives of the same kind in actions which appear most useless and absurd to those who do not enter into these motives.  In a word, a strong or oft-repeated impression may alter considerably our organs, our imagination, our memory, and even our reasoning.  It happens that a man, by dint of having often related something untrue, which he has perhaps invented, finally comes to believe in it himself.  And as one often represents to oneself something pleasing, one makes it easy to imagine, and one thinks it also easy to put into effect, whence it comes that one persuades oneself easily of what one wishes.

  Et qui amant ipsi sibi somnia fingunt.

25.  Errors are therefore, absolutely speaking, never voluntary, although the will very often contributes towards them indirectly, owing to the pleasure one takes in giving oneself up to certain thoughts, or owing to the aversion one feels for others.  Beautiful print in a book will help towards making it persuasive to the reader.  The air and manner of a speaker will win the audience for him.  One will be inclined to despise doctrines coming from a man one despises or hates, or from another who resembles him in some point that strikes us.  I have already said why one is readily disposed to believe what is advantageous or agreeable, and I have known people who at first had changed their religion for worldly [436] considerations, but who have been persuaded (and well persuaded) afterwards that they had taken the right course.  One sees also that stubbornness is not