If human nature were not
base, but thoroughly honourable, we should in every debate
have no other aim than the discovery of truth; we should
not in the least care whether the truth proved to be in favour
of the opinion which we had begun by expressing, or of the
opinion of our adversary. That we should regard as a matter
of no moment, or, at any rate, of very secondary consequence;
but, as things are, it is the main concern. Our innate vanity,
which is particularly sensitive in reference to our intellectual
powers, will not suffer us to allow that our first position was
wrong and our adversary’s right. The way out of this diffi-
culty would be simply to take the trouble always to form a
correct judgment. For this a man would have to think before
he spoke. But, with most men, innate vanity is accompanied
by loquacity and innate dishonesty. They speak before they
think; and even though they may afterwards perceive that
they are wrong, and that what they assert is false, they want
it to seem the contrary. The interest in truth, which may be
presumed to have been their only motive when they stated
the proposition alleged to be true, now gives way to the in-
terests of vanity: and so, for the sake of vanity, what is true
must seem false, and what is false must seem true.