A Man Cannot Lay Down The Right

Passions Unguided Are For The Most Part Mere Madness.

The World Is Governed By Opinion.

From Whence It Happens, That They Which Trust To Books, Do As They That Cast Up Many Little Sums Into A Greater, Without Considering Whether Those Little Sums Were Rightly Cast Up Or Not; And At Last Finding The Error Visible, And Not Mistrusting Their First Grounds, Know Not Which Way To Clear Themselves; But Spend Time In Fluttering Over Their Books, As Birds That Entering By The Chimney, And Finding Themselves Enclosed In A Chamber, Flutter At The False Light Of A Glass Window, For Want Of Wit To Consider Which Way They Came In.

True And False Are Attributes Of Speech Not Of Things. And Where Speech Is Not, There Is Neither Truth Nor Falsehood. Error Theremay Be, As When We Expect That Which Shall Not Be; Or Suspect What Has Not Been: But In Neither Case Can A Man Be Charged With Untruth.

And Therefore, As When There Is A Controversy In An Account, The Parties Must By Their Own Accord, Set Up For Right Reason, The Reason Of Some Arbitrator, Or Judge, To Whose Sentence, They Will Both Stand, Or Their Controversy Must Either Come To Blows, Or Be Undecided, For Want Of A Right Reason Constituted By Nature; So Is It Also In All Debates Of What Kind Soever.