Appendix 36.

(925) [Error and habitual judgment]

Most common errors, it would seem, depend upon habitual judgments formed almost involuntarily and irresistibly by the mass of people. Judgments become habitual because experience indicates an almost constant connection between the inability of ordinary people to take note of infrequent exceptions and their tendency to judge immediately; they pass from 'often' to 'always' without suspending judgment when necessary. For example, everyone said that the sun moved around the earth, although the eye told us nothing of the real movement of the sun. People as a whole judged on the basis of their sight-sensation; they would have avoided error if they had suspended their judgment. But was this possible in the light of almost general experience which showed apparent movement to be accompanied by real movement of what was seen? It is true that this law of experience showed various anomalies, some of which are common to everybody's experience. For example, to a man in a moving boat the banks seem to be moving. But individual examples are powerless to help the mass of people suspend their judgment. When people as a whole are ready to make certain kinds of conclusions, to urge them to suspend their judgment is like trying to prevent an avalanche on a mountain - you may foresee it, but you will be unable to stop it. Such judgments are amended only after centuries. First, some extraordinary person shows that they are wrong, only to be eliminated for his pains by public opinion. But his martyrdom does not sweep away what he has discovered. The grain of truth gradually forces its way to the surface and conquers the multitude itself which comes finally to realise its errors, to repent and to blush at the thought of its stupid presumption and cruel, ignorant pride.