Then
opinion and knowledge have to do with different kinds of matter corresponding to this difference of faculties?
In the same way I thought that the sciences contained in books (such of them at least as are made up of probable reasonings, without demonstrations), composed as they are of the
opinions of many different individuals massed together, are farther removed from truth than the simple inferences which a man of good sense using his natural and unprejudiced judgment draws respecting the matters of his experience.
CRITO: But you see, Socrates, that the
opinion of the many must be regarded, for what is now happening shows that they can do the greatest evil to any one who has lost their good
opinion.
There are, of course, many objections to what I say: Milton is a great example of the contrary; but his
opinion with respect to the 'Paradise Regained' is by no means fairly ascertained.
Public
opinion! what class of men have an immense preponderance over the rest of the community, in their power of representing public
opinion in the legislature?
Marianne was afraid of offending, and said no more on the subject; but the kind of approbation which Elinor described as excited in him by the drawings of other people, was very far from that rapturous delight, which, in her
opinion, could alone be called taste.
But though he had, as we have said, formed his morals on the Platonic model, yet he perfectly agreed with the
opinion of Aristotle, in considering that great man rather in the quality of a philosopher or a speculatist, than as a legislator.
This is the nature of right
opinion. For virtue may be under the guidance of right
opinion as well as of knowledge; and right
opinion is for practical purposes as good as knowledge, but is incapable of being taught, and is also liable, like the images of Daedalus, to 'walk off,' because not bound by the tie of the cause.
If, then, a man should make this exception and contend that statements and
opinions are capable of admitting contrary qualities, his contention is unsound.
But to enable a prince to form an
opinion of his servant there is one test which never fails; when you see the servant thinking more of his own interests than of yours, and seeking inwardly his own profit in everything, such a man will never make a good servant, nor will you ever be able to trust him; because he who has the state of another in his hands ought never to think of himself, but always of his prince, and never pay any attention to matters in which the prince is not concerned.
"My own
opinion of the matter is, briefly, as follows: I don't think she has met with any serious accident.
If it be true that all governments rest on
opinion, it is no less true that the strength of
opinion in each individual, and its practical influence on his conduct, depend much on the number which he supposes to have entertained the same
opinion.