JB_005_226_001.xml

Title: [14 Feb y 1813 Church II Topics]

Description: 14 Feb y 1813

Church II Topics

Ch 6.

7 §.1. Abstract

Part 5. Power over

Coercive authority

smooths all

difficulty &

manufactures

with ease, not

only declarations

of persuasion but

persuasion itself.

By coercive authority wheresoever it has been

pleased to enter upon the field and display its exert its force, all

these difficulties have been overcome - all delay much

shortened at least, all uncertainty excluded. For manufacturing

not merely declaration of persuasion — for that is

a commodity which with such an instrument may be

manufactured at once in the twinkling of an eye and in any quantity — but

for manufacturing persuasion itself, coercive authority has

an experienced and never failing . process

The description as

concise as the operation

prompt.

The operation is not more prompt than the description

if it is concise.

By hope or fear get

declarations

of credence

quantum. suff.

(false or true no

matter as the falsity

cannot be proved (a)

By the known and approved means - by fear - by

hope - by both together, = procure in sufficient quantity,

a body of declaration of persuasion. To the purpose here in question, whether This declaration

[whether it] be true of false, matters not of a straw. By those

by whom it is made, it is of course certified for true: and

be it ever so false, its falsity is more than by any human

being can by any direct evidence prove to be true. (a)

(a) Note to say - viz.

in the instance of any

particular individual:

in general: witness purposes

| (a) c.c. in the

Number and value of declared persuasion together, proportioned to the quantity mass

of declaration of opinion you have thus obtained collected, is the

weight of authority intellectual authority - which you have obtained. By In this weight

of authority you possess an instrument by which, as

surely as by a well constructed piece of machi flour mill

flour is produced, you produce a quantity correspondent of persuasion

of the adoptive kind. Your declarations of persuasion

may have been every one of them false:

the product of them in the shape of adoptive persuasion

will not be the less sincere.

By mass

of declarations

you have a power

by which in proportion

to & weight of the

authorities, belief

is produced as

certainly as

grain becomes flour

in a mill.

JB_005_233_001.xml

Title: [14 Feb y 1813 §.1 Part 5. B + Church]

Description: 14 Feb y 1813 §.1 Part 5. B +

Church Ch.6.

11 §.1. Abstract

Part 5. Power over

1 Forcibly deceptive process needful the absurdity of the persuasion ( 2)

2. Thence employment of its of that absurdity in the eyes of the employers

3. declared persuasion of the as the

From the above

view of the deception

process these conclusions

may be

drawn.

From this view of the view thus given of the nature

and power of the forcibly deceptive process the following

conclusions of a nature more or less intimately connected closely applying to

with many it should since be deduced.

1. Declarations of

credence - palpably

false may be produced

on any

subject.

1. By means of this process, on any subject whatsoever

declarations of persuasion declarations to any degree palpably absurd

palpably false as well

as to any degree absurd may be produced.

Accordingly it is by this principle, whether the particular

mode in which it was applied have or have has or has not

been handed down by history, that in the case of the

several religions the falsity of which is by the religionists

of the religion of Jesus, as well as by non-religionists

in general recognized, the adherence to their several religions

in the case of the immense multitudes that are found adhering to them must have been produced.

Th us must have

been produced the

general credence

in religions now

acknowledged to be

false.

JB_005_215_001.xml

Title: [14 Feb y 1813 Church Ch. 6.]

Description: 14 Feb y 1813

Church Ch. 6.

2 p1.

Part 4.

In practice the

persuasion which

guides human conduct

particularly in religion is of a mixt

kind, - partly indigenous

in part adoptive.

In practice - in matters in general - and in

matters of religion in particular — the persuasion

by which human conduct is determined - the persuasion

upon which a man acts, is very frequently

— not to say most frequently - of the mixt kind: -

partly indigenous, partly adoptive.

Much time

saved by acting

on adoption belief

By acting on adoptive persuasion, in general most commonly

much time is saved! Be the subject what it may

suppose any a mans declaration of persuasion an opinion in print —

that declaration opinion the opinion of one whose judgment

as declared is regarded as a competent and apt guide, the ascertaining

it may be but a moments work. whereas

the forming in relation to that same subject an indigenous

opinion, even in a mind ever so well qualified for

the formation of it may be the work of hours or days

not to say months or years.

Note (a)

(a)

Even mathematics

adoptive the persuasion

a man is

often if not for the

most part guided

by. A mans refers

without scruple to a work of note

for a demonstration

all parts

of which are not

in his mind.

(a) Even on a mathematical subject — even in the mind

of the ablest mathematician - the judgments on which

he acts operates will in great part not to say for the most

part in some degree of the adoptive kind. On

the subject of this or that proposition he himself

(suppose) has formed an opinion of the indigenous kind.

But at the instant that he has need of it to build upon

the demonstration is not — if it be a long one is not in

all its parts — in his mind. Accordingly partly for his

own satisfaction, partly for that of his expected readers, he

makes reference to a plan some mathematical work of

be quoted — say to Newton - where the demonstration

is delivered at length.