All appeals to authority he answered with a contemptuous smile.

'The best authorities ?' he used to say.

'On what question do not the best authorities flatly contradict each other?
And why?
Because every man believes just what it suits him to believe.

Don't fancy that men reason themselves into convictions; the prejudices and feelings of their hearts give them some idea or theory, and then they find facts at their leisure to prove their theory true.

Every man sees facts through narrow spectacles, red, or green, or blue, as his nation or his temperament colours them: and he is quite right, only he must allow us the liberty of having our spectacles too.