(5.) Obstinacy in Opinions holds the Dogmatist in the chains of Error, without hope of emancipation. While we are confident of all things, we are fatally deceiv'd in most. He that assures himself he never erres, will always erre; and his presumptions will render all attempts to inform him, ineffective. We use not to seek further for what we think we are possesst of; and when falshood is without suspicion embrac't in the stead of truth, and with confidence retained: Verity will be rejected as a supposed Error, and irreconcilably be hated, because it opposeth what is truly so.
"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
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Friday, September 13, 2013
Considerations Against Dogmatizing, V
Joseph Glanvill (1636-1680), Scepsis Scientifica: or, Confest Ignorance, the Way to Science; in an Essay of the Vanity of Dogmatizing and Confident Opinion, ed. John Owen (London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co, 1885), p. 201 (from Chap. XXVII):